Fighting
by i-took-an-axe
Summary: Headmaster of Hope's Peak, married to the woman he loves with a much-longed for son, life is perfect for Makoto Naegi - right until it isn't anymore. Even with personal heartache, his luck and enemies old and new, he's still the same guy, fighting not to give up even when it seems hopeless. (Part of my 'Hoping' series, but read as stand alone if you wish.)
1. Chapter 1

_Hi folks, hope you all had a great holiday season. I don't know if I should be more sorry for the length of this fic or the level of angst - eek, please forgive me on both counts!_

 _I can't thank you all enough for reading and for leaving kudos & comments on previous parts. I did my best to incorporate things mentioned in your comments and I hope you can excuse the absence of Shuichi this time around, I have big plans for him coming in a later installment. If this is the first you're reading of this series, you can definitely pick it up here._

 _Enjoy & a very happy new year to all._

* * *

Tonight, Makoto Naegi was a monster.

A monster whose mission it was to hunt one particular little boy around most of the house before wrangling him upstairs to the bath. Just the night before Makoto had been a wolf, and for most of the previous week a bear: it had become clear that four-year-old Koichi did not actually expect to evade bathtime, he just liked the thrill of the chase. Makoto was sure this could be attributed to having a detective as a mother, but his wife argued Koichi inherited his eagerness for action from him.

While Koichi scrambled to hide and Makoto counted to ten loudly and slowly, Kyoko was working. Since they had become parents and her apprentice had gone off to college, she was more selective about what work she took - investigating less minor mysteries, but throwing herself more deeply into the bigger cases. In practice, this translated to her being around a lot day to day, until a phone call would inevitably come that would drag her away for days, sometimes weeks. This time, it was some kind of government corruption and the suspiciously unreported death of a former mayor. Makoto was grateful it was at least in Japan, so she'd be home at some point to change and shower - the last case had been ten days of solo parenting while she was in another continent, and as much as he loved their kid, it sucked.

By the time he finished counting, there was silence. Wherever Koichi was hiding - and Makoto was fairly certain he'd heard the telltale squeak of the boy's running shoes on their kitchen linoleum floor - he was waiting to be found. Makoto made a few growl noises and pretended to search the couch, before stomping into the kitchen, where a loose shoelace was peeking out from under the tablecloth.

Makoto smirked at the easy catch. He crouched, giving another growl for good measure, before pulling the tablecloth back and scooping his arm around... _nothing_? He blinked into the dark space, empty but for just one of Koichi's shoes.

A foam sword poked his back repeatedly, startling him. "Take that, monster!" Koichi declared, triumphant. "Gotcha."

When Makoto turned to his son, who was smiling widely in front of the open kitchen cupboard he had presumably just climbed out of, he was a little impressed.

"You tricked me." It was the first time he'd been outsmarted by the boy, but Makoto doubted it would be the last. Koichi was his mother's son, after all.

"I tricked the _monster_ ," Koichi corrected, smart enough to understand that the distinction was his pass out of trouble. Then, happily, he added, "No bath tonight, Daddy. I win."

Makoto wasn't sure how to argue with such logic, so he just laughed. Later, when he relayed the story to his wife over the phone, she would snort at that part and ask him if he seriously allowed their four-year-old to cheat his way out of their nighttime routine.

"Hey, I can pick my battles," Makoto said. "I'll have him shower in the morning before school."

Kyoko made a noise of amusement. "Who knew you were so threatened by toy weapons?"

"I'm threatened by the determination in his eyes when he knows he's right," Makoto admitted. "That Kirigiri fierceness is pretty terrifying when you're on the receiving end of it."

"Hm." Kyoko paused. "Maybe the next one will be easier on you."

It took him a moment to realise what she meant by this - the next nightly game of hide and seek? - but just as he was about to question it, something clicked. _The next kid._

It was the first time Kyoko had mentioned having another a child in over six months. When Koichi turned two, they decided to start trying for another - Makoto liked being close in age with his own sister, even if they hadn't always gotten along as kids, and Kyoko seemed keen to 'get it over with' so she could cultivate the rest of her career without having to factor in breaks for pregnancy. Given the trouble they'd had to conceive Koichi, they opted immediately for in vitro fertilization. It was expensive and certainly more stressful, but they ardently believed it would be less time consuming.

Two years and two failed cycles later, they had yet to strike lucky. The first time they'd been warned that it might not be successful, which somehow made the second disappointment an even greater knock. He knew not having a definitive answer as to why they were struggling so much was eating at Kyoko: for years, they'd attributed their trouble to the anecdote she'd taken to counteract the poison she'd been injected with, or maybe the poison itself, but the IVF process and the selection of only the healthiest embryos should have bypassed those issues. _Maybe it wasn't Seiko's cure,_ Kyoko had said the night after the second failed embryo transfer, _Maybe it's just me._

They agreed to take some time off from fertility treatments after that. Makoto loved being a father and of course he wanted another baby, but he couldn't take the way his wife pulled away from him a little more each time it didn't happen.

And so, to hear her imply that after all that they would have another child at all more than took him off guard. "Next one?" A thought struck him then, and his heart quickened. "Wait! Kyoko, are you - "

" - No," she said, quickly, but with audible remorse. "No, Makoto. I'm not pregnant."

"Oh." He sank back against the headboard of the bed, dejected.

"Sorry," she said, after a long pause. "I didn't mean to imply - "

He shrugged, although of course she couldn't see him. "It's fine. I was just dumb for a second."

"Not dumb, just optimistic. Your best asset, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah." He frowned. "You want to do another cycle?"

"I think so." Kyoko was rarely uncertain about anything, but Makoto understood completely why hesitation was creeping into her tone on this occasion. "Don't you?"

"It's not really up to me," he said, truthfully. If he was honest, the topic made his stomach tighten, and not with excitement, but he didn't know how to say that without making it about him, so he stayed quiet.

"Hm, maybe not ultimately," Kyoko admitted, tenderness creeping into her usually matter-of-fact tone, "but you certainly get a vote, Makoto."

"I dunno. I guess I'm happy either way." Yawning, Makoto slipped his legs under the duvet. The bed was cold without her. "You're staying out all night, I take it?"

"Yeah. I'll try and be around for bedtime tomorrow at least." There was a smile in her voice. "Can't have our son duping you too much."

"No," Makoto agreed, with a sigh of mock-resignation, "that's your job."

* * *

He was having the morning from hell and it wasn't yet 9am.

First, he'd slept through his alarm, the result of staying up a little too long worrying about Kyoko, the way he always did when she was out on a case. By the time he was shaken awake by a soft-voiced, "Daddy? Daaaddy?" he realised they were running almost thirty minutes late.

So, no shower for either of them. He dressed Koichi and fixed his hair hasilty - met with the usual resistance of "but I like how _Mommy_ makes it look" - and used the last of the milk to pour him some cereal.

"Eat fast buddy," he insisted, fiddling with his tie. The dog, Nori, came into the kitchen barking for breakfast, earning Koichi's attention mid-spoonful and causing him to turn, hitting the bowl with his elbow in the process and knocking it into his lap.

"Oops." Koichi, not waiting for Makoto to stop wincing, hopped off his seat. The bowl predictably fell onto the floor and smashed, pieces of sharp ceramic scattering everywhere, along with the soggy cheerios. "Uh-oh."

"Don't move!" Makoto commanded, stopping Koichi in his tracks as he made an attempt to reach for one of the shards. He crossed the room and picked his son up, setting him down on the other side of the mess. "It's okay. It was an accident. I'll clean this up. You go change your clothes."

Koichi pouted. "I need you to help me."

Makoto couldn't keep from sighing. "Koichi, you don't." Every morning that Kyoko was here, he had no problem putting on the clothes she laid out for him - just like he could brush his teeth without assistance, and go to sleep in his own bed at night without protest. It was amazing the independence he selectively had when his mother was around and he wanted to make her proud. "Go on, be quick."

"But Daaaaaddy," Koichi wailed, flapping his hands to his sides in a huff. "I can't!"

"You can." Makoto tugged Koichi's milk and cheerio-covered trousers off as the child struggled against him and tossed them to the side. "If it has buttons or a zipper, I'll help you. Just go find something clean."

" _No_!"

" _Koichi_." Makoto tried to sound stern, but it came out exasperated. "I'm not asking," he said, but when the boy crossed his arms across his chest and scowled, Makoto found himself adding, a little helplessly, "Please?"

After a little more bargaining - Makoto may have promised pancakes and ice cream for dinner - Koichi disappeared upstairs and he went back to cleaning up the mess. He had tossed the pieces of the bowl into the trash and was dishing out wet food from a can for the dog when his cell rang.

It was Aoi Asahina.

"Hey." Makoto propped the cell between his ear and his shoulder as he dug around in one of the overhead cupboards for the box of oatmeal breakfast bars Kyoko stashed for mornings they were short on time. "I was gonna call you from the car. I'm running late."

"That's so not what I wanna hear right now, Makoto!"

"I know but my luck _and_ my four-year-old are both conspiring against me today so - "

" - Wait, why aren't you more panicked?" Hina gasped. "Oh my God, Makoto, did you forget?"

It was probably redundant to respond with, 'forget what?' and it didn't seem like Makoto had the time to rack his brain, so instead, he said, nervously, "Uh, I guess so?"

"I knew you must have, there's no way you'd be crazy enough to deliberately schedule the twelfth grade 'Your Future is Bright' Day and the interviews for new deputy head _at the same time_."

"The same time?" Okay, so the interviews had genuinely slipped his mind, but too much planning went into the annual twelfth grade fayre for him to forget. "No. 'Your Future is Bright' isn't until this afternoon."

"Tell that to the four different college representatives setting up their presentations in the main hall, or the sixty parents and guardians who are scheduled to be here within the next half hour." Mournfully, she said, "You didn't proofread the invite you sent round, did you?"

"We've used the same template for years! It's _always_ in the afternoon."

"It was held in the morning the first year we did it," Hina reminded him, "Byakuya must have changed it himself every year."

"Alright," he said, decidedly, "Cancel the interviews."

"This will be the third time we've had to cancel! Do you know how many candidates have dropped out?"

"Good," Makoto said, hoping to sound confident. "Then we're weeding them out. Win-win."

"Makoto!" Hina hissed. "You need to get down here and handle this."

"I know. I'm sorry. I'll be as quick as I can, promise." He hung up, abandoned the search for the breakfast bars and instead grabbed a banana, yogurt and a spoon. He slipped into his shoes at the door and then called to his son up the stairs.

Koichi materialised dressed in a shirt that was buttoned wrong and shorts.

"Koichi, it's ten degrees out."

Koichi wrinkled his nose. "I don't know what that means."

"Okay, you know what? It's fine. You'll be indoors all day anyway." Makoto grabbed Koichi's coat from the rack and mentally sighed, _it will do._ "Just let me fix your shirt."

This was melt with a recoil and a yelp. "Noooooooooo," the boy cried, "I like it like this! I did it myself."

Makoto let it go. He put Koichi in the car and gave him the banana and yogurt. "Be careful not to spill it," he warned. Koichi cheered up when the radio came on and sang along with the wrong words contentedly until they pulled up in front of his school. He was quiet as Makoto unbuckled him, and quieter still as Makoto led him inside by the hand. Koichi loved school and usually, he was the one leading Makoto impatiently, so he was already half-expecting it when Koichi stopped outside his classroom and tugged on the bottom of his suit jacket.

"Can Mommy pick me up today?"

"Mom's working." Makoto ruffled his son's hair. "Aunt Komaru will come get you."

Koichi frowned and brushed his face against Makoto's trouser leg, a little arm coming to wrap around his thigh. "I want Mommy."

"I know buddy. You can call her after school, okay?" Kyoko had said she'd be home tonight, but Makoto had learned the hard way that telling Koichi she would be somewhere ahead of time would only lead the greater devastation if something came up and she couldn't be, which was the case more often than not when she was working.

Sometimes, Makoto was guilty of getting caught up in the fact nothing seemed to scare Koichi - that he liked stories about monsters and dragons, that he didn't ask them to check under his bed or in his closet - and sometimes, Makoto mistook his son's cleverness, his stubbornness, for maturity. Sometimes, he forgot how small he still was and how he misbehaved when his mother wasn't around not only because he was testing boundaries, but because he missed her.

For a long moment, Makoto forgot about the deputy head interviews and the twelfth grade future day and instead, he crouched down to be eye level with his son.

"You know, I miss Mom too. You wanna know a trick to make the time go faster till we can see her again?"

Koichi nodded, his eyes wide and unblinking. Trusting.

"The more fun you have, the sooner she'll be back." Makoto gestured to Koichi's classroom, where kids were climbing over each other on a rainbow print rug."If you have a good time with your friends today, she'll be home before you know it."

" _Okay_." Koichi let out a sigh and Makoto stood again.

"Atta boy. You be good, okay? I'll see you later."

Koichi got as far as the classroom door before turning back. "You gotta have fun too, Daddy," he warned, his brow furrowed, "It'll make time go extra quick."

Unfortunately, Koichi's sweet wish for him was not set to come true. Makoto arrived at Hope's Peak Academy to the word 'DESPAIR' graffitied across his designated parking spot. He sighed, but didn't have time to dwell on it before jogging up the stairs to the main hall.

Hina was waiting for him in the corridor with a clipboard. She thrust it at him. "You need to get a new deputy. I had to miss my morning swim with my homeroom class to hold down the fort."

"I'll buy you a donut at lunch to make up for it," Makoto promised his friend. He glanced at the clipboard, a sign-in sheet of all the parents. "Hey, impressive turn out."

"Yeah and they were all getting pretty antsy waiting for a speech from their kids headmaster like, fifteen minutes ago."

"Got it. Thanks, Hina."

"Two donuts!" She called after him as he made his way into the gymnasium.

Speeches didn't make him nervous - at least, not any more. If anything, it was the silence as he approach the podium that unnerved him. His nerves eased immediately when he opened with a (half)joke about what a terror his son had been that morning as an explanation for his tardiness and the room broke into laughter. The understanding from other parents made him feel less like a figurehead and more like a person. He hoped it helped them see him that way, too.

After he made all the necessary points and garnered a few more laughs, he stepped back to let the employability teacher talk about the different avenues available to the students post-high school. Then, the recruitment fayre started and students filled in, most seeking their adults out in the crowd before mingling with the college, army and business representatives located around the room.

He hung back for the most part, chatting to the occasional parent who approached him and doing the rounds to thank the recruiters who had volunteered their morning to help the pupils decide what they wanted to do with their lives. And then his eyes fell on one student who was not milling around with brochures and free pens and an attentive adult like the others: Itoh Sotan was sitting alone on the edge of the stage, earphones tucked in his ears, the track team hoodie he wore under his school blazer pulled over his head.

Makoto approached him and motioned to the space beside him. "Mind if I sit?"

Itoh didn't take his earphones out. "I don't care."

Makoto sat and looked across the room at the crowd of loud chattering. "Your grandmother couldn't make it?"

Itoh was an orphan, like a lot of the older kids at Hope's Peak - hell, like a lot of the world, after the year of despair and the rocky aftermath. It had been a long time since then, but on days when it slipped from Makoto's mind, he would receive a complaint from a teacher saying Itoh was smoking in class, or that his freshman girlfriend, Maida, had stormed out of her counselling session with the student guidance counsellor for the third time this week; he'd be tasked to retrieve permission slips for a school trip, only to have a teenager look him directly in the eye and tell him they didn't have anybody to sign it; he would note his shock on days like this, when there were enough adults in the lives of his students to fill a room.

"Nah," Itoh said, shrugging. "She had a doctor's appointment."

"Ah." Makoto wanted to ask, but knew better. "I'll go around with you, if you want - to talk to the professors and the recruiters."

Itoh didn't look at him. "No point."

"Ah. You already know what you want to be?"

"A professional runner, duh." Itoh was, as far as Makoto knew, an excellent athlete, but not quite 'Ultimate' tier. Still, that was the whole point of dissolving the idea of ultimates and reserves that he had campaigned for so much when the school reopened: he wanted the kids of his Hope's Peak to have equal opportunities and encouragement.

"Sure, but it doesn't hurt to have a backup plan in case you change your mind," Makoto said, gently.

"Was being a headmaster your backup plan?" Itoh asked, flatly.

Makoto frowned. "Well, I mean, I _guess_ \- "

"I figured. No offense, but I think I'll stick to aiming high." Itoh reached for his rucksack, discarded on the floor. "Can I go to the library? I need to use the computers. Mine at home is busted."

Reluctantly, Makoto let the teenager go. He'd tried a lot with Itoh over the years, sometimes at the request of his grandmother who always seemed to be at the end of her rope with his piercings, the company he kept, his obsession with track at the cost of his studies. For a while a year ago, he'd talked Itoh into getting a job to help his grandmother out with bills and save for a car; he'd also managed to secure extra tutoring for Itoh in the subjects he was struggling in, certain it wasn't all a lack of effort, and had been starting to see positive results that affirmed he'd been correct. But then summer break had come and Itoh had returned in the fall with more piercings and a new girlfriend and an even greater chip on his shoulder.

In the staff lunchroom later that afternoon, he cracked open the box of donuts he'd gotten his secretary to pick up and asked Itoh's homeroom teacher if he'd been in class that morning.

"When is he ever?" Mr. Nemoto scoffed. "Why? He try and steal breakfast from the food bank donation box again?"

"Um, no, but that's definitely also a concern," Makoto said, frowning. "Someone graffitied my parking spot this morning. The paint was still wet when I got there, so it had to be someone who wasn't already in class."

Beside him, Hina wiped her mouth of icing on the back of her hand. "What did the graffiti say?"

" _Despair_. In capital letters."

"Oh." Hina reached for another donut, hesitating as she debated between iced and glazed. "That's original."

"Yeah." It wasn't unusual. Every few months or so they were forced to deal with instances of pranks or vandalism or idle gossip referencing the dark history of Hope's Peak. Usually, the guilty party would get bored before they were caught or, even if it did get to the point of punishment, it would phase out quickly - that was both the best and the worst thing about teenagers: they had pretty short attention spans.

"Should get Kyoko on it," Hina suggested, around a mouth full of donut, "if you're worried, I mean."

"Nah. It's more than a little below her expertise and anyway, it's nothing I can't handle."

When Nemoto excused himself to make a phone call, they were alone in the teacher's lounge, and Hina turned to him. "How is Kyoko?" she asked, seriously.

"She's good." Makoto blinked at his friend, confused as to why she was still looking at him expectantly. "Um, why wouldn't she be?"

"I mean, with all the infertility stuff." At the sight of his eyes widening, Hina clarified, "Relax, Makoto. I didn't guess from you - although I totally knew something was up. She told me."

" _Kyoko_ told you? She talked about it with you?" Makoto couldn't hide his disbelief and only just managed to hide his hurt. She'd barely talked about it with _him_.

"I think it was easier to talk to someone who wasn't involved," Hina said, sympathetically. "She wanted me to keep an eye on you at work, let her know if you were spiralling." Hina gave a wry smile. "You do that sometimes, you know."

Makoto was aware of that tendency. He had deliberately worked to not spiral on this occasion, though. Kyoko needed him to be consistent, reliable, steady. Evidently, she had not had much faith in his ability to be any of those things, if she'd requested Hina's help to look after _him_.

"What did you tell her?"

"To talk to you about it herself, tell you she was worried." Hina shrugged. "I'm gonna guess she didn't do that."

"Neither of you need to worry about me. I'm fine," Makoto said, defensively. "Wait, you asked about her - you think she's not okay?"

"No. She sounded fine when she told me, but you know Kyoko. She bounces back from things pretty quick."

It made him think of her on the phone the night before, about how she wanted to do another cycle of IVF. He worried, not for the first time, that Kyoko's determination to have a baby had more to do with her resenting being told no by the universe than it did a genuine desire to grow their family.

"I'll drop it." Hina held up her hands. "What I won't drop is that you need to stop grieving for Byakuya and hire someone else to fill his spot."

"I'm not 'grieving.' Jeez, you make it sound like he died."

In reality, he'd just quit. It wasn't unexpected - he'd insisted from day one that he was only acting as deputy head until they could find someone more suitable because he had better things to do. Makoto had foolishly come to believe he was just pretending like he was doing them a favour to save face, but then he hadn't known that in the background, Byakuya was rebuilding Togami Corp by investing his wages in the stock market.

Makoto hadn't been mad when Byakuya told them (via group text) that he was leaving,

but he had been a little sad about it. It sucked to be left high and dry professionally, but it sucked even more because Byakuya was more than a colleague. He'd been the first to go back to the academy when they agreed to reopen it, to spare the rest of them the wreckage; he'd been best man at Makoto's wedding. For years, he'd been privy to the best and worst moments of Makoto's life and to suddenly just not have him around was taking some getting used to.

There was a part of Makoto that was a little jealous too. In the beginning, Kyoko had helped him run the school, but then she went back to detective work; Hiro abandoned his role too in favour of setting up his own clairvoyance business; even the school library couldn't hold Toko's attention, and she left after just a few months to write novels full-time from home. Besides him and Hina, everyone else had moved on, as if Hope's Peak was just a stop on their way to what they were supposed to be doing. Prior to Byakuya's leaving, it had been a while since Makoto had been reminded of the fact he was the one without a proper talent among his friends.

It was not that Makoto wanted to be somewhere else professionally - it was that he, unlike the others, didn't know where else he _could_ go. Being the headmaster of Hope's Peak was a great job, a rewarding job, even - but Itoh Sotan hadn't be wrong, earlier. It _wasn't_ were Makoto thought he would end up. And somewhere between Kyoko's gripping mysteries and Byakuya's instagram pictures of his fancy new office, it had started to feel a little like the consolation prize.

"When was the last time you spoke to him?" Hina asked, the implication being that Byakuya had all but dropped off the face of the earth, save for an obnoxious social media presence.

"He's a busy guy," Makoto reasoned, fairly. "I left him a voicemail last week. I'm sure he'll get back to me."

Hina didn't push further, but she did sigh. "He's not going to come back, Makoto. You don't need to keep the position open."

"I know. I'll get on it, okay?"

A man of his word, Makoto returned to his office and called each candidate individually to apologise for the last minute cancellation of their interviews and to reschedule. He was inputting the information into his calendar, setting notifications to his phone in the hopes that next time, he wouldn't forget, when he got a text from Kyoko, letting him know she'd picked Koichi up from school and that she'd see him at home, so he knew he didn't need to stop by his sister's on the way home to retrieve the boy.

That evening, he came through the door to a house that was quiet but for the low hum of the television. He made his way down the hall and paused in the doorway to the living room for a second, just to admire the sight of Koichi leaning against Kyoko's side, his thumb in his mouth, eyes intently fixed on whatever animation was on screen, while his mother flipped through some papers in her lap. They were sharing a blanket.

Kyoko caught him staring sooner than he would have liked, but then she smiled at him and he decided he didn't mind so much.

"You wrapped up the case?"

She shook her head. "No. I just had some thinking to do." As she said this, she was stroking Koichi's hair idly. "How was your day?"

"It just went from a three to a nine so, pretty good." Makoto crossed the room to kiss her cheek and then stole another from her lips. "I missed you. What do you want for dinner? I'll cook."

"I was told you promised pancakes."

"Oh yeah." Makoto sighed. "Don't judge me. I would have promised him a pony if it meant we got out of the house this morning."

"Komaru said she'd watch him tonight," Kyoko suggested. "We could go out."

Makoto couldn't remember the last time they'd had a date night. They'd been pretty terrible at observing even their anniversary the last few years - it fell a week after Koichi's birthday, which meant they were at first too busy with a newborn to remember, much less celebrate. The year after, Makoto had had to attend a retreat with one of his classes after another teacher dropped out last minute; for the next two years, Kyoko had been so busy with detective work that they managed only a belated take out at home with candles and this year, despite the best laid plans and the restaurant reservation it had taken weeks to get, an hour before they were supposed to go, Koichi developed a fever and a stomach ache and they hadn't even had to a have a conversation about it - one look, exchanged between them as their son shivered, impossibly small in their bed, and Kyoko was kicking off her heels to climb in beside him and Makoto was calling his sister to tell her they wouldn't need her to babysit after all.

Parenthood trumped romance and they both understood that. Which was why, however much Makoto wanted Kyoko to himself tonight, he knew Koichi needed her more. "Let's take a rain check on that," he said, "I think we should have a family night."

Kyoko followed his eyes to their son, who hadn't looked up from the television, but cuddled closer to his mother, his head now tucked under her arm.

"Sure," she said, taking the hint. That night as she tucked their son into bed, Makoto listened from the hallway as Koichi pleaded with her to be there in the morning when he woke up.

"You know how he gets when he's overtired," Makoto said, in an attempt to make her feel better as she slipped into bed beside him after. "The other night he threw a fit because I dared to wash the shampoo out of his hair. He kept insisting I'd ruined it."

Kyoko didn't say anything for a long time. She laid on her back and looked up at the ceiling. Makoto shut off the bedside lamp and inched closer to her, until his chin was resting on her shoulder and they were sharing a pillow.

"I thought I'd understand my father more when I had a child of my own," she admitted, quietly. "I thought I'd get it, finally."

Makoto snaked an arm around her waist. She leaned into his touch. "You're nothing like your dad, Kyoko. You're working, not leaving. Koichi knows you're coming back."

"Exactly - and it's still difficult." Kyoko paused, and then, something inside her seemed to crack and an uncharacteristically vulnerable, "How did he just walk out?" spilled out.

"Kyoko." Makoto pressed a kiss to her temple. "He was a complicated guy. Things between him and your grandfather were messy. He did what he thought was best."

"That's a cop out." She sounded petulant. She sounded sad. Makoto's hold on her tightened and he nuzzled her shoulder. "Even if you and I hated each other, even if we couldn't make it work and I thought Koichi was better off with you, I could never just - " She broke off and rubbed her face. "I don't know why I'm talking about this. I don't _care_. It's been too _long_ to still care."

"That's not how it works. There's nothing wrong with thinking about it, or talking about it. It's a good thing to care."

"I don't want to anymore." Kyoko shrugged out of his hold and for a second, Makoto thought he'd lost her, until she climbed on top of him and kissed him, hard. "Anyway, I'll be home with Koichi more when I get pregnant again."

Makoto couldn't help but scoff at that. "I'll bet."

"I will," she insisted, and Makoto wasn't sure who she was bargaining with - him, or fate. "I'll take time off this time. I won't take any new cases. I'll be around so much you'll get tired of seeing me."

"I doubt that very much." Makoto brought a hand up to cup her face. "You told Hina."

Kyoko nodded. "I wanted you to have someone to talk about it with."

 _I only wanted to talk about it with_ you, Makoto thought, but he knew saying this aloud now, months later, would only cause more harm than good.

"I appreciate that, but you don't need to worry." He gave her hand a squeeze. "I'm okay as long as you are."

Kyoko took that as confirmation that he was ready to try again, obviously, because when her case finished up three days later they were back to appointments at the fertility clinic and hormone shots and everything else that came with what their doctor classed as 'secondary infertility.'

It didn't take long for Makoto's anxiety to dissipate, giving way to excitement. Perhaps part of it was that he had less to worry about at work - he'd found a new deputy, for one thing. Yuugo Kane was older than Makoto, but too young for his hair to be greying at the sides like it was. According to his resume, he'd spent most of his adult life in third world countries advocating for the education of poor children, where he developed a love of teaching and an even greater passion for equality within education. At his interview, he'd smiled at Makoto and said that it was for the latter reason that he was so impressed with Hope's Peak. "It's amazing to me how you took a school with such a reputation for being well... _elitist_ and made it such a place of inclusion," Kane had said earnestly. "I really admire your ethos that _every_ child is special and valuable, regardless of perceived talents or skills."

And so, in Makoto's mind, he was perfect for the job. Hina approved too, and although the others were all cc'd in on the email he'd sent around with the candidate profile attached, he'd received no replies. One night, as he and Kyoko folded laundry in the kitchen after Koichi was in bed, he asked her what she thought and she'd responded with a flippant, distracted, "sure, whatever you think," which was how he knew she was too wrapped up in the fertility stuff to spare a thought for much else. He took his as a sign to make more of an effort to take her mind off things, and with Kane relieving the pressure at work, was able to get away at least once a week for romantic lunches.

"You've been a huge help. I really can't thank you enough," Makoto said, when Kane covered for him one afternoon so he could go to an appointment at the fertility clinic with Kyoko.

Kane had waved him off, but a flicker of something crossed his face. "Don't mention it Naegi. Family comes first."

Makoto had hesitated in the doorway. "Do you have any? Family, I mean."

"No." Kane looked away and, after a beat, he shook his head. "They died."

"Oh, Kane, I'm so sorry." The words sounded so useless, so empty. "I didn't know you were married."

"I wasn't." He gave a pained smile. "My partner was a man." Right - because gay marriage wasn't yet legal in Japan. "We adopted our daughter a year before they were both murdered in a hate crime."

"That's... horrible."

"It was a long time ago. I've dedicated my life to doing something good with the loss. I had to make their deaths mean something." Yuugo Kane glanced at the clock. "Naegi, you shouldn't keep your wife waiting."

The appointment was disappointing - something about inconsistent hormone levels meaning they would have to push back the embryo transfer another month. That evening, Makoto came into the kitchen to check on dinner to find Kyoko staring out the window, watching their son stomping around happily in the garden in his pokemon mud boots. Makoto hooked his arm around around Kyoko's waist and joined her in admiring the view. He thought of Kane.

"We're so lucky, you know." When Kyoko scoffed, he pressed a kiss to her temple. "I mean it. We have each other. We have a healthy, happy kid." He paused, trying to think of the best way to say what he was thinking. "Do you think we're ungrateful for wanting more?"

"You can be happy with what you have and still want other things," Kyoko replied. "They're not mutually exclusive."

"Yeah, but sometimes I wonder if...I don't know, if maybe we're just supposed to have one kid. And if that's the case, I mean, it's not bad thing, right?"

Kyoko sighed, her eyes still on their son, waving around a stick he found. Makoto couldn't tell if it was a weapon for fending off imaginary enemies, or if he was trying to cast a spell on the dog. "He's always playing by himself," she said, quietly. "I want him to have a brother or sister."

"Was it lonely being an only child?" Makoto didn't think it was the kind of thing that would bother Kyoko, who was both fiercely independent and a loner. But then, there were a number of things he didn't think she'd care about - the importance of stories before bed, their son witnessing them being affectionate with one another, nurturing all of Koichi's dreams even those that did not involve detective work - that she'd surprised him by making a priority when it came to parenting. From what he could gather, she was trying to give their child the things she hadn't had.

"I didn't really think about it," Kyoko admitted. "But Koichi's like you - he's social. And if anything happened to us, I wouldn't want him to be alone."

Makoto sighed. Since becoming a mother, Kyoko had developed a weird fear that they would die unexpectedly and leave their kid orphaned. It was why they both had a detailed will, despite not even being thirty yet, outlining who would raise Koichi in their absence - Hina, the only one they could trust to be equal parts tender _and_ tough. Even thinking about it kinda depressed Makoto, but it had put Kyoko's mind at ease. Until now, it seemed.

"Kyoko, we're not going to die."

"Well, we definitely are."

"Right, someday when we're really old." Makoto turned her around to look at him. "Koichi is gonna have us for a really long time. We're not gonna be leaving him alone anytime soon."

"I'm sure my mother thought the same thing," she said, stepping out of his hold to check on the pasta. "Besides, Koichi's just one part of it. You want a daughter."

"I don't," he protested, but Kyoko gave him a look and he stopped pretending. "Okay, so I do, but I'd be just as happy with another boy."

His reasons for wanting a girl specifically were dumb anyway - curiosity, really, as to how he and Kyoko's genetics would combine in a little girl, if she would have her mother's eyes and ability to wrap him around her finger in an instant. Maybe, a part of it was that Koichi and Kyoko were so close that sometimes, for a few seconds every now and then, he felt left out. It wasn't like he was actually bothered by it - he'd loved watching their bond develop over the years; it was nothing short of adorable how much Koichi worshipped his mother, and loving their son unlocked so many wonderful qualities of Kyoko's that Makoto hadn't been able to; and anyway, he'd been closer to his mother growing up, too. Mothers and sons had that a unique kind of relationship and so, supposedly, did fathers and daughters.

But, if it was ungrateful to want another kid when people like Kane had to bury theirs, it was worse still to be picky about it. Ultimately, Makoto would have still given anything for another little boy to look up at Kyoko like she hung the moon.

"I know you would. But we've said for years we wanted another. Since when do we give up?"

"I'm not saying we should, I'm just...I dunno." He wanted to tell her about Kane - he'd meant to, actually, to pick her brains about the death of his boyfriend and daughter. It sounded too straightforward to be a case of hers, but there weren't many violent murders in Japan in the last few years that she hadn't at least heard about. Before Makoto could bring it up, however, Koichi came into the kitchen from the backdoor.

"Is dinner ready yet?" he whined, stepping out of his boots and tugging off his scarf. "I'm hungry."

"Set the table," Kyoko commanded, and Koichi obeyed without argument. As he passed by her to the utensil drawer, she touched her hand to his hair. "Thank you." She turned back to Makoto as she flipped the switch on the stove. "You were saying?"

Koichi was still within ear shot, so Makoto was not about to talk openly about a family being murdered. "I just feel like I need to put things in perspective, you know? I know it's rough right now and it seems like we're not getting the thing that we want most, but once, you were what I wanted most, and then he was. I remember how it felt, both times, to think that I'd gotten so much more than I deserved and that I'd never ask for anything else ever again. I don't ever want to ever stop feeling lucky for what we have because we're too busy wishing for something else." As he took the pot of pasta from her and began to dish it out, he noticed her staring at him. "What?" he said, puzzled.

"Nothing." She looked away, but when she looked back, she was smiling. "You just reminded me of someone for a second there."

"Who?"

" _You_ ," Kyoko said. "The you from before."

* * *

Makoto's first thought, when he cracked open his eyes to the complete darkness of his bedroom, was that there was a reason he had woken open. His second thought was sparked by the muffled ring of his cellphone under his pillow. He felt around for it and struggled to sit up in bed, bringing it to his ear without looking at the caller ID.

Still half-asleep, he expected Kyoko, until he realised Kyoko was stirring in the space next to him.

"Hello?" he said, groggily. There was silence on the other end of the line. He pulled the phone back to check the line was still connected, and it was then that he recognised the number. It was the academy, and the extension was his office.

"Hello?" he repeated. By now, Kyoko had groaned and forced her eyelids open to frown up at him.

 _Who is it_ , she mouthed. He shrugged, shaking off the last bit of sleep. His senses were sharper now, enough to place the sound of breathing on the other end of the line. Almost as soon as he recognised the noise, the line went dead. He pulled the phone back from his ear again and this time, he just blinked at it.

"Wrong number?" Kyoko asked, sounding bored.

"No. I...I think someone's in my office." Makoto scratched the back of his head. "I could hear breathing."

"Breathing?" Suddenly, Kyoko's interest was piqued. She sat up in bed and readjusted her ponytail. "Male or female?"

"I don't know."

She sighed, as if his answer defeated her. "Well, was it shallow or deep? Did it sound breathless or controlled?"

"Kyoko, it was like a quarter of a second and it's," he glanced at the bedside clock, "3:23am. I wasn't taking notes."

"Alright, well, one way to find out." She threw back the covers and slipped out of bed. "Your keys are downstairs, right?"

"Where are you _going_?" Only then did Makoto realise he was supposed to be doing something. "I should call the police."

Kyoko pulled a face. "I mean, if you _want_ , but do me a favour and give me a headstart."

"You're not going anywhere." He tried to grab her wrist, but Kyoko was too quick for him. She was already pulling on jeans over her pajama shorts. " _I_ should go. It's my school."

"Fine, then we'll both go."

Nodding, Makoto grabbed the t-shirt he'd discarded on the floor earlier that night. When he looked up, they met each other's eyes and in unison, they realised. " _Koichi_."

Less than five minutes later, Makoto was bundling the little boy wrapped in a blanket, asleep, into the car while Kyoko started the engine. "We are terrible parents," he said wearily, buckling the car seat as Koichi's head rolled to the side and he let out a small noise of discontentment. "What if it's _dangerous_?"

"It won't be. It's probably just kids playing a prank," Kyoko said, and she sounded confident, but when they pulled up around the back of the school, she turned to look at Koichi and told Makoto to call the police. Then, she opened the car door.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm just going to take a walk around. I'll be back in a minute."

"Kyoko!" He hissed, but she'd already closed the door on him. He dialled the police emergency lined and reported a potential break-in. The operator logged it but informed him the police were unusually busy tonight so there might be a delay. He cursed his luck and squinted through the windscreen, trying and failing to make out Kyoko in the darkness.

When she came back to the car after what felt like an eternity, he was startled by the opening of the car door. "No obvious signs of a break in. I secured the place and I didn't see anyone."

"So, ghosts?" Makoto joked.

"Unlikely." Kyoko beckoned to him. "Come on. There's something you need to see."

This time she carried Koichi while Makoto came behind them with a torch. If Kyoko was unnerved at all, she did not seem to be, and something about her fearlessness had always been infectious to him. It would be a lie to say that he was not a little lost in the thrill of it all as they crept down familiar hallways to his office.

By his secretary's desk, there was a couch for students to wait to see him. Here, Kyoko laid their son down and fixed the blanket around him. His eyelids fluttered open before she could back away. "Mommy?" he mumbled, sleepily.

"Shh, darling," she said, softly. "You're dreaming."

When he stilled again, she turned to Makoto and nodded toward his office door. "Look inside."

A little gingerly, he pushed open the door, expecting to find the place ransacked. Instead, it looked just as he'd left it. He turned to her, a question on his lips, but as he took a breath to do so, he realised there was horrible smell - like damp, but more metallic.

Kyoko's expression was blank, inferring he had to figure this out himself. He walked toward his desk and sure enough, on his chair, was the source of the smell. Beady eyes stared back at him, dark and dead. It was… an animal? A dead _cat_ , to be exact.

He looked to Kyoko, quizzically. "Someone left it here?"

She leaned against the doorway, her arms folded. "I imagine someone's trying to spook you."

"To what? Buy a different chair?"

Kyoko tapped her foot, unamused. "I had a look around and nothing seems to be taken, but you should check for yourself."

He did as he was told. At some point during this, Koichi wandered in to stand beside his mother, blanket draped over his shoulders like a cape.

"You lied," he said to Kyoko, yawning. "It's not a dream. You can't dream faces you don't know. What's that smell?"

"Nothing. Hey, you want to help?" Kyoko said.

Makoto stopped what he was doing to glare at her, but Koichi simply shrugged and pulled the blanket tighter around himself. "I guess."

"Stand by the window," Kyoko instructed. "Tell me when you see police lights outside."

The windows were on the wall opposite Makoto's desk. It was a good call on her part at keeping Koichi busy without traumatising him by the exposure to a dead animal.

"I usually keep this locked," Makoto said, pulling out a drawer of his file cabinet where he kept background information on the students, filed alphabetically.

"Could you have left it open this time?" Kyoko pressed.

Makoto leafed through the files, but it was impossible to tell without pulling everything out and pouring over each individual folder if anything had been taken. "It's possible."

"Why did you call the police anyway?" Koichi asked moodily, rubbing his eyes. "Grandpa Kiri says the police are hopeless and syrupt-ted."

"Corrupted," Kyoko corrected. "And he's bitter because when he was young detective, a cop outsmarted him."

"What's your excuse?" Makoto asked, smirking.

"Loyalty," she replied, lifting her chin a fraction.

"Alright, so let's say nothing was stolen. Someone broke in, cold called my cell in the middle of the night and left a - um, you know what, in my office to... _spook_ me?"

"Hm. You make a good point - why the call? You'd have found the ca- _thing_ anyway in the morning. It's like they were trying to lure you here - but why, if it would only increase the risk of them being caught?" Kyoko frowned in thought. "Who, besides you, has the keys to the school?"

"Just the caretaker." Kyoko did not stop staring and under her scrutiny, Makoto winced. "Hina has a copy of the master keys too - sometimes her swim team trials run late and she needs to lock up. I guess Kane has a set too, but I don't know if he's ever even used them."

"Well, I think we can rule out Hina. This Kane - does he keep the keys in his office, or on him?"

"I have no idea. I can check."

Kyoko handed him the ring of his own keys. "The deputy office is locked. I didn't have time to try each one."

Makoto flipped through a few before realising he did not actually have a key to that room. Byakuya had insisted he didn't want Makoto coming and going whenever he wanted, so he'd surrendered it years ago. When he explained this to Kyoko, she rolled her eyes.

"You idiot."

While Kyoko demanded Makoto call poor Kane right that moment and insist he come down to the school, Koichi blew breath onto the window pane so he could draw stick figures in the steam. "I bet the bad guys have a cooler car than us," he said, mournfully. His most recent obsession was cars - his favourite were sports cars in bright colours.

"There are no bad guys here, Koichi," Makoto said, relenting finally and taking out his phone to call Kane.

"Well, duh, daddy. She already left."

At this, Kyoko's head whipped round. Makoto abandoned the search in his contacts for his deputy headmaster. " _She_?" they chorused.

Koichi gave a pained sigh. "I _told_ you. You can't dream faces you haven't seen before."

"Where did you see someone?" Kyoko asked, skeptical.

Koichi pointed to the waiting area outside the office, where they'd laid him down. "Over there."

"Impossible," Kyoko argued. She turned to Makoto. "I checked this floor twice. I was _thorough_. There's been no one here but us."

"She came out of the other room," Koichi said. The other room that adjoined to the waiting area - the deputy's office. "She did this," he brought his finger to his lips, in a 'sush' motion, before shrugging. "And then she just left."

"Why didn't you call to us?" Makoto was skeptical himself, but maybe he just didn't want to believe they had potentially put their son's life in danger.

"Because," Koichi said, as if it were obvious, "she did _this_ ," he repeated the motion pointedly. "She's a bad guy. I didn't want to make her mad."

Makoto looked at Kyoko, who he could tell was still hesitant to believe their son. He crossed the room to put an arm around Koichi, while through the window police lights came into view. "You did the right thing, buddy. Very clever. Now let's get out of here and you can give the police some help figuring out who it was, okay?"

They left the room together, but when they made it to the corridor, Makoto noticed Kyoko wasn't beside him. He looked back and saw her hesitating by the deputy's door. Meeting his eye, she tried the handle. The door, locked when she'd tried it before, now opened easily.

Koichi hadn't been lying.

Begrudgingly, he gave the police a description of the girl he'd seen. Makoto had a hunch early on who he was describing, but he didn't interject. The police said they'd take some fingerprints and examine the cat for evidence, but of course the security cameras on the entire floor had mysteriously malfunctioned earlier in the day, so they didn't have much to go on. As they turned away, Koichi sighed and declared, "Grandpa Kiri's right about the police," and so Makoto quickly pulled him toward the car.

"You know who it is," Kyoko said, matter-of-factly, as they put on their seatbelts. "But you didn't tell them. Why?"

"She's a student," Makoto explained. "A freshman. She's just a kid."

"A kid who has it out for you," Kyoko pointed out. When they reversed out of the parking lot, she put her hand on his knee. "It's not your job to protect her, Makoto."

Makoto threaded his hand through Kyoko's, the image of Maida Yuji in his mind - another kid who'd been robbed of a family and a normal life because of the despair year. Over his shoulder, he looked back at his own child, drifting back off to sleep in the backseat, even amid all the excitement - who, at no point during the night had exhibited even a smidge of fear, who had never had reason to, because the world he lived in was safe and he trusted his parents to keep it that way.

"If I don't," Makoto wondered aloud as he turned back to his wife, "who will?"

* * *

The next morning, Kane was stricken. "We were discussing her disruptive behaviour in class - I left her alone in my office for just a moment while I took a call. She must have swiped the keys when I wasn't looking. Heaven knows how she was able to hack into the security cameras and initiate their shut down." Frown lines creased on his forehead, his green eyes looked heavy with regret. "I'm so sorry, Naegi."

"It's fine, Kane - I'm sorry you had to get tangled up in this. Once I talk to her, I'm going to speak to police again and get them to drop the investigation."

Or at least, that was his plan. When he summoned Maida to his office, she was chewing gum and missing her school tie. The three top buttons of her shirt were exposed to reveal a tattoo along her collar bone: a cursive 'bite me.'

"Do you know why you're here, Maida?" he asked, when she'd sat down in front of him and Kane, who stood by his side.

"I figure it's cause of last night," she said, bluntly.

Makoto hadn't been expecting her to cop to it right away. He tried to mask his shock with a stern look. "It is. Would you like to explain to me what that was all about?"

Maida smirked. "I think you got the message."

Beside him, Kane shifted. "This is a serious offence, young lady," he said, his stare harsh. "Not only is it a major violation of school policy, it's a crime. You could be facing time in jail - are you aware of that?"

"More importantly," Makoto added quickly, "It's a breach of _trust_. Why would you do something like this, Maida?"

She chewed her gum thoughtfully, and then she folded her hands together in her lap and said, simply, "Because I hate you."

Makoto's mouth fell open a little in shock, and for a few seconds, there was just silence. Kane cleared his throat, uncomfortable, and looked to Makoto, seemingly waiting for him to speak. But he couldn't - because he didn't know what he was supposed to say to that, besides _um_ , _why?_

"I think we've heard enough from you," Kane announced, turning to Maida. "Three weeks suspension, beginning today. We'll reassess then."

"No jail?" Maida mocked with a pout. "Shame. I _really_ wanted my picture in the newspaper."

Maida hopped to her feet and gave him a little wave over her shoulder as Kane led her out and a strange wave of nostalgia hit Makoto - as if a weird memory was trapped somewhere in the fog of his brain, but with each passing second, it faded more and more. By the time Kane had returned, it was gone completely, and all he was left with was a shudder.

"Thanks for taking over there," Makoto said, turning his attention back to the matter in hand. "I wasn't expecting her to be quite so...blunt."

"I'm just glad to be useful."

"I should go after her. Try and figure out what this is really about." As he made to get up from his chair, Kane put his hand on his shoulder, and gently pushed him back down.

"I don't think that would be a very... _wise_ move on your part." Kane looked away, awkward. "Naegi - I do not want to speak out of place."

"You're not. I want to hear what you have to say." Makoto leaned forward in his chair. "Kane, what is it?"

"I truly admire your humility and your...eagerness to connect with your students."

"Thanks. I just think it's important we respect them as people, you know? I mean, everyone's got a story and - "

" - _but_ ," Kane continued, shaking his head, "I'm not trying to criticise you, please know I am speaking from a place of respect - however, as your deputy, I feel responsible for ensuring your credibility as the principal of this school."

Makoto blinked at the other man, confused. "My...credibility?"

"There's been some talk among the staff that your approach isn't the most effective when it comes to wrangling the more... _problematic_ pupils."

"Oh." Makoto felt his cheeks burn. "Um, what's being said exactly?"

"The general consensus seems to be that you're much too lenient - that you care more about being liked than you do about being listened to and that, as a result, there's a serious problem with the behaviour of a number of students." Kane shook his head a second time. "I'm sorry, Naegi, I didn't want to be the one to bring this to you - however, I am a man who believes in loyalty."

"No, no, it's fine." Makoto tried to paste on a smile. "I appreciate the feedback and I'll take it on board. Thank you."

He busied himself for as long as he could with paperwork before heading off towards the gym, where Hina was coaching the volleyball team. He stood in the doorway until Hina blew the whistle and the game ended, and kids filed out of the room high-fiving.

"Hey you." Hina smiled widely when she spotted him. "How did it go with Maida?"

"She admitted to it. She's suspended for the next three weeks."

Hina raised an eyebrow. "Suspension? That's not like you."

Her tone, or maybe it was his sensitivity to her tone, made him bristle. "I'm trying a new tactic."

"Oh." Hina bounced the ball she was holding against the ground and caught it again. "Cool. So, what's up? You need something?"

"I feel dumb asking this," Makoto admitted, rubbing his neck. "People around here aren't...talking about me, are they?"

He expected Hina to be surprised by this question, but instead, her eyes widened in recognition and she ducked her head, a little guilty. "How do you mean?"

"I dunno. Saying things about my approach - that I'm too soft, or something."

"Makoto," Hina said, sympathetically. "You are soft. And that's great, ya know? That's you, that's how you've always been. It's just that...not everyone is gonna agree with you all the time."

"I know that." It wasn't a dictatorship. He didn't care if people had different opinions than his. He cared that they all seemed to share the same opinion - namely, that he sucked at his job, and that no one had told him it until now. "Why didn't you say something to me?"

Hina sighed. "I didn't want to hurt your feelings."

He thought about what Kane said, _I am a man who believes in loyalty._ "But you're my friend. Didn't you think it would be better to hear it from you?"

"I get that, but...Makoto, it's not always easy to be your friend _and_ be a member of your staff." Even as she said this, Hina looked like she was regretting it. Her shoulders slumped in defeat. "Listen, you know I love you. But sometimes...I don't think you thought this far ahead."

"What does that mean?"

"In the beginning, re-opening the academy was this exciting thing, right? It was all about showing that hope had won. And then it was re-branding, taking in kids with and without talent, especially kids who'd had it tough because of all the despair. We were doing good and taking a stand. But now - well, now it's budgets and academic targets and I just...I know this isn't the part you signed up for." Hina looked at him then, finally, but she seemed to wish she hadn't, if the way she was fidgeting was an indication. "And every now and then, other people can tell too."

"Oh." Makoto backed out of the gym. "Thanks a lot for the heads up, Hina," he said, wounded.

"Makoto!" She made a move to follow, but he let the gym doors slam behind him so that she couldn't.

When he got home from work, Koichi was asleep on the couch. He hadn't napped during the day in months so to see him curled up and peaceful while it was still light outside gave him pause.

"Is he sick?" he asked, finding his wife at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee and case file.

"Nope. We went to the park with my grandfather after school." Kyoko took a sip of coffee. "It was a treasure hunt this time - thirty clues, which is excessive even for him. Still, it's one way to tire Koichi out."

"Ah." Although Koichi thought his mom had the coolest job ever, he hadn't shown much natural interest in detective work himself. Still, that did not stop Fuhito from trying to inspire it on the occasions when they allowed. "How'd he do?"

"Our son is a cheater _and_ a thief," Kyoko sighed. "I caught him trying to memorise the map from my grandfather's notebook."

Makoto chuckled as he pulled off his tie. "Did you rat him out?"

"I wanted to, but it had been _hours_ by that point and the clues were asking a lot from a four-year old, so I let it go. He fooled Fuhito anyway: he took us out for dinner to celebrate because he was so pleased with Koichi's performance."

"Well, as long as Fuhito's happy." Makoto opened the fridge, poked around inside for something to make himself, and then decided he wasn't all that hungry. Finding out everyone thought you sucked at your job was kind of an appetite killer.

"Mm. How was your day?" Kyoko looked up from whatever she was reading. "What happened with the girl who broke into your office?"

Makoto leaned against the kitchen bench and folded his arms. "Kyoko, what am I good at?"

"What kind of question is that?" She asked, frowning as she closed over the case file in front of her.

"A serious one. List three things I'm good at - besides all the hope and positivity stuff."

"Hm. Well, you're patient. You're brave. You're intuitive."

Makoto couldn't hide his disappointment. "That stuff makes me a good person - but what am I actually _good_ at, practically? Forget the emotional stuff for a second. What are my _skills_?"

"The emotional stuff _is_ a skill. Who told you it wasn't?"

Makoto sighed, but he sat down next to Kyoko at the table. "Everyone at work thinks the whole dead cat in the office thing is because I'm a pushover."

"No," Kyoko said carefully, "the 'dead cat in the office thing' is because teenagers notoriously dislike authority figures."

"Yeah well, word on the street is I'm not much of an authority figure." Makoto slumped against the back of the chair.

"I'm sure you're being oversensitive."

"That's easy for you to say. You've always had a purpose." Makoto threw his hands up in the air. "This was supposed to be mine and apparently, I'm no good at it."

"That's not true." Kyoko tilted her head. "Since when did you let other people psych you into giving up?"

"I'm not."

"Then stop feeling sorry for yourself and show them they're wrong." Kyoko said this like it was easy, but Makoto knew she wasn't trying to minimise it - it was that for someone like her, someone focused and brilliant and so sure of herself, proving people wrong _was_ easy. It was something they'd never been quite able to relate on.

In actual fact, Makoto did spend the best part of the next few days feeling sorry for himself. Perhaps it would have gone on longer, if not for the upcoming embryo transfer and the two weeks after when it was still too early to test, when sleep became a distant memory and he felt like one of dog's toys, the one with stretchy arms and legs, like he was being tugged between anxiety and excitement while the middle of his chest fraying in two. When finally, a blood test confirmed Kyoko was pregnant again and the doctor congratulated them, it was as if the two opposing forces let go of him, stretchy limbs snapped back into place, he felt weak and full all at once and he cried as he shook the doctor's hand, his other hand holding onto his wife's.

Although things at work weren't improving - Maida had returned from suspension, and had stepped up her antics to slashing his car tires - knowing he was going to be a dad again made it a lot more bearable. Not everyone was supposed to be a career person, he'd begun to reason with himself. Maybe his talent wasn't being a principal and maybe that was okay - because maybe, the thing he was supposed to be all along was a husband and father.

Still, it did not stop his thoughts wondering to what Hina had said. Did people really think he only wanted to be headmaster of Hope's Peak for the optics?

 _Did_ he?

He was pondering it, still, when Kane brought an issue with the mid-term budget to his attention. "There's more going out than coming in," he explained, simply, handing Makoto a copy of the spreadsheet he was working from. "Who usually manages financials around here?"

The answer was, of course, Byakuya - because the rest of them had been deemed 'incapable' by him years ago. "Um. The position is vacant at the moment."

Kane's raised eyebrows suggested that this was even stupider than it sounded. "I see. Well, in the meantime, I'm happy to keep an eye on things. Now, may I make a few suggestions?"

Most of Kane's suggestions were minor, until his finger lingered over the physical education budget. "This is a serious issue. I recommend halfing it, at least."

They moved around numbers elsewhere, but it was no use. Kane made a good point - that the money that went toward physical education could be better spent on advertising, where they lacking. It was a shitty decision to make, but part of being a principal meant he had to make shitty decisions, and wasn't that was he was trying to prove: that he was capable of going with the boring and the sensible; that he was mature enough to know that sometimes, that was the right choice?

He planned to tell Hina during the school's lunch break. Maybe, to soften the blow, he'd tell her about the baby too. He knew Kyoko would understand.

But when he got to the staff room, Hina was laughing over the coffee machine with the health teacher, and it occurred to him that maybe, they were joking about him.

Even if he knew he was being paranoid, he had another reason for turning away and going back to his office. He should follow Hina's lead and keep their friendship separate from work - and so he composed an email instead, the way he would if she were any other department head.

The next morning, she was waiting outside his office with her arms folded. "What the hell, Makoto?" she demanded.

"I have meetings this morning. I have some free time this afternoon if you want to schedule - "

Undeterred, she pushed past him to storm into his office. "You don't get to be mad at me for being honest with you after you _asked_ me to be. And even if you do, you don't get to take it out on _my_ students."

"Hina," he sighed, "it's not personal."

"Yeah, I figured you thought that since I found out via _email_." Hina turned on him, fierce. "You know the kids who will be affected by this will be the ones who need it the most. Kids who rely on sports as an outlet for the crap they've got going on at home, kids who can't afford to join private teams or classes."

She was talking, specifically, about an after school programme she named for her brother: _Yuta training_. When Makoto had given it the green light three years ago, she'd burst into tears and hugged him so tight he hadn't been able to breathe. When they broke apart, she told him he was the best friend ever.

"I know, and I feel horrible about that but Hina - it needs to be done." He looked up at her, genuinely regretful. "Maybe next semester, we can reassess."

Hina's eyes were wide, but focused, like she was seeing him for the first time. "I've always had your back, Makoto." She gestured to the room they were standing in. "I was the first one to support you when you said you wanted to reopen. I stayed, even when everyone else bailed."

"I know, and I appreciate that." He sat down at his desk and shook his head. "I'm sorry you're upset, but you were right - I do need to take more control of things around here. The practical stuff. This is me trying to do that."

"Right." Hina turned away. "I just didn't think that to do that, you'd sell out the kids you wanted to help in the first place."

He let her go, certain she would calm down. When he came downstairs from putting Koichi to bed that night to Kyoko hanging up the phone with a 'Bye, Hina' he knew she hadn't.

"Everything okay?" he asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Her boss is a jerk, apparently."

"Yeah, I heard." He flopped down beside his wife and yawned. "Screw that guy."

Kyoko gave him a measured look. "You'd tell me if you needed something, wouldn't you? At work, I mean. If you're stressed, I can help."

"You do help." Makoto threaded their fingers together and smiled, slipping his other hand across to rest on her stomach. "You guys are the best part of my day. Just keep doing what you're doing."

The softness in Kyoko's face dissolved as her gaze flicked past him to the television screen. Makoto followed her stare to the nightly news broadcast. The images on the screen were of brutality and a war that every night, seemed to inch closer and closer to their part of the world. No one really knew who the terrorists were, or even what they wanted, although the West seemed to think it was all about oil. Kyoko reached forward, for the remote control abandoned on the coffee table and promptly turned the news off.

"Do you worry about it?" he asked her, when she settled beside him again. "Does it make you scared about the kind of world our kids are going to grow up in?"

She shook her head. "The world isn't raising our kids," Kyoko said, as stubborn and sure as ever. "We are."


	2. Chapter 2

It was a Tuesday, a teacher training day that Kane had insisted he was fine to cover, when it all went to hell. After leaving Koichi to school and grabbing some breakfast, they went home where they spent the morning rifling through boxes he'd gotten down from the attic over a week ago - things they'd bought for Koichi when he was a baby and kept, hoping one day they'd have reason to use them again.

Kyoko was fourteen weeks along by now, which meant, in Makoto's mind, that they could breathe a little. He remembered being terrified every day of her pregnancy with Koichi, so much so he hadn't felt like he'd enjoyed much of the process, and so this time, they'd agreed early on that the only way to survive this pregnancy with their sanity in tact was to force themselves to relax.

They had successfully sorted through four boxes, but still had another three to go when Kyoko yawned. "I'm beat."

She hadn't been sick much this pregnancy, but lately, she'd been wearing out pretty easy. Makoto helped her up, noticing she looked paler than usual. "Headache?" he asked, sympathetically.

"No. I just feel a little dizzy. Can you bring me up some water?"

"You got it." He pressed a kiss to her forehead and watched her disappear into their bedroom. When he returned, a few moments later, glass of water in hand, she was already asleep under the blankets.

He thought about finishing off the last of the boxes, but it wasn't as fun without Kyoko to reminisce with and despite the sleeping pills he took daily and the mindfulness he'd been trying to practice, he was still finding it hard to sleep at night, so he slipped into bed beside her instead.

They weren't asleep for long - maybe thirty minutes or so. Makoto wasn't even sure who woke up first, just that when they met each others eyes sleepily he smiled and thought _this is what perfect feels like._

He'd barely finished the thought when Kyoko sat up in bed, too quickly, her body tense under his touch when he reached to pull her back. She threw back the covers as he shuffled to sit up, a question on his lips, but then he saw the dark stains on the white sheet, watched Kyoko touch her hand to herself and her hands start to shake when she drew it back and her fingertips were wet and bright red.

"We need to go to the hospital," he said, getting out of bed. "Are you in pain? Can you walk?"

Kyoko, who was the one who usually operated on autopilot, who barked the orders in a crisis, who took control of a situation quickly before it could take control of her, didn't move. Strands of lavender hair had come loose from her braid while she slept and now hung to frame her face, paler now than it was before; her eyes were wide and rimmed with confusion. She looked so young, in that moment, that Makoto felt the breath catch in his throat.

"Kyoko?" He went around to her side of the bed and eased her out. She let him lead her to the ensuite, where he washed the blood from her hands and changed her clothes. When she was dressed in a pair of his old sweatpants (much too short in the legs and tight in the hips) and a jumper she'd last worn on Christmas, he smoothed back her hair. "Honey, we have to go."

"I did everything right," she said, numbly, blinking down at the sight of herself, in different clothes and no longer covered in blood, like she hadn't even been present for the last three minutes. "Makoto, I did _everything_ right."

The truth was, she had. Far more than the last time she'd been pregnant, Kyoko had taken the instructions of the doctors seriously. She hadn't worked a single case; she'd taken prenatal vitamins religiously. She stopped lifting Koichi and she cut out coffee. Makoto felt a pang in his chest at how much this baby was wanted, how it wasn't like Kyoko to let herself want things for fear of disappointment.

In the car, she pulled her knees to her chest and sank down low in the passenger seat, flinching away from his touch. At first, he tried to be optimistic. "I bet it's no big deal. It's pretty common to bleed when you're pregnant, it doesn't always mean something is wrong." Even as he said these things, he was recalling the blood pooled in her underwear, on the inside of her thighs, stained into the lines of his hands from when he'd tried to clean her up. Too much blood, he knew, and he knew she knew this too, which was why, when she said, defeated, "Makoto, _stop_ ," he let go of trying to lie to them both and they passed the rest of the drive in silence.

If luck existed in such a moment at all, it was in the fact the hospital waiting room was empty. They were taken right away to a side room, where a nurse with sad eyes examined Kyoko and then pulled an ultrasound machine in.

Kyoko turned her head so she wouldn't have to see what was on the screen, but Makoto couldn't tear his eyes away. The baby was still there - he could still _see_ it - but the nurse shook her head.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "There's no heartbeat."

"Check again," Makoto pleaded. "Please."

"I've checked twice." The nurse patted Kyoko's arm. "It looks like a placental abruption. It happens sometimes. When it's this early on, there's rarely a reason."

She turned off the doppler and began to talk about options. They could give Kyoko some medication and have her come back in a few days, by which time they could deliver the baby if she hadn't already at home, or they could do a procedure today - a D and C, which somehow, sounded more traumatic. When Kyoko picked the second option, Makoto squeezed her hand.

"Maybe you should take a minute to think about it."

"There's nothing to think about." Kyoko looked at him, but now, her face was blank, which was somehow worse than the pain he'd seen there before. It felt like she was staring right through him. "I need this to be over."

The nurse said she would be back with an anesthesiologist in a little while. When they were left alone, Kyoko straightened up and tucked her hair behind her ear. "Koichi," she said, pragmatic now the shock had worn off. "You need to call someone to get him."

In the panic and the pain of the last twenty minutes, Makoto hadn't even thought of his son. He glanced at the clock on the wall - school let out in five minutes. "Shit. You're right." He dug around in his pocket for his cell phone, loose change from the hospital parking rattling as he did so, before realising he'd left it at the house. " _Shit_."

"There's probably a payphone somewhere."

Makoto hesitated. "I don't want to leave you."

"It's fine, Makoto." She shut her eyes and rubbed her temples, like even this conversation was draining. "Go."

The closest payphone was on the floor above, which seemed ridiculous to Makoto, but what was more ridiculous was that when Makoto reached it, he realised there was only one number besides Kyoko's that he knew off by heart. Aoi Asahina answered on the second ring.

"Hi?"

"Hina?" It was a relief, somehow, to hear a voice that wasn't empty. Like a reminder that there was a world outside of this hospital that wasn't so horrible. "It's me."

"I knew you'd call and try to damage control this whole thing!" Hina's earlier brightness was replaced with anger. "I told Kane today, I don't think expelling kids like Maida is the solution. Whatever's going on with her, it's a cry for help. How can you seriously okay this?"

Makoto had no idea what she was talking about, nor did he particularly care. They hadn't spoken, beyond dry and necessary emails, since the budget fiasco. She'd told Kyoko she felt betrayed and, worse, like he'd gone behind her back to do it. So, why would she agree to help him, now? What right did he have to ask her to?

But, on the other hand, what choice did he have?

"Can you get Koichi from school?" He sounded strangled. He had to pause, to steady his breath before continuing. "I know how things are between us, Hina, I wouldn't ask -"

"I'll go right now," Hina agreed instantly, her anger and hurt gone at the sound of his desperation. "Makoto, what's wrong?"

As he sank down against the wall, holding tightly to the payphone, Makoto thought to himself, _everything_.

* * *

When he returned to the hospital room, the nurse had him wait outside with her while a doctor gave Kyoko a spinal tap ahead of the procedure.

"She's going to be awake?" he asked, frowning.

"We usually recommend the patient be put out, but it requires an overnight stay," the nurse explained. "Seems she's keen to get out of here."

"Well, can I go in with her?"

The nurse shook her head. "I'm sorry. But in my experience, after is when she'll need you most."

Makoto tried to accept that. When the doctor passed him, he went back inside and sat on the edge of her bed. "Hey." He took her hand. "Hina's gonna keep Koichi for as long as we need. She sends her love."

"Makoto," Kyoko said, looking away. "I asked the nurse to call my grandfather."

"You should have given me his number, I'd have called him for you," Makoto had already offered this before it occurred to him that Kyoko calling Fuhito right now was strange: they weren't that kind of family.

"I can't go home," she said then, as if that was supposed to be an explanation.

 _Home_. He hadn't thought of it until that moment - the bloody sheets still on their bed, the piles of baby clothes on the landing, the tester shades of paint on the walls of the spare room that was supposed to be a nursery.

"Alright. So when your grandfather gets here, he can stay with you and I'll go home and... clean up all that stuff, put the boxes back -"

She curled her fingers and edged her hand out from underneath his. "It's not just the things from the attic. It's you. It's Koichi." Kyoko shook her head. "I can't right now."

"Listen," he almost added, ' _baby'_ but the word died on his tongue - it didn't feel like a term of endearment anymore, something loving and affectionate; it felt like salt in an open wound. "I know how much this hurts. But we're going to get through it, like we get through everything, together."

When he put his hand on her shoulder, she pulled back. When he looked at her, he knew she wasn't in shock anymore; she wasn't hysterical. She spoke with clarity. "You're not listening. I need _time_."

 _But I need you_.

Just then, the nurse returned and said it was time to take Kyoko to the operating room where the procedure would happen. Makoto felt like he was reeling from a slap to the face, but still he pressed a kiss to the side of her head. "I love you," he told her, and she nodded, but she didn't say it back.

He was in the waiting room when Fuhito arrived. A receptionist pointed the old man in Makoto's direction. In fairness, he looked as confused as to why he was there as Makoto was, which really should have made him feel better but didn't.

"Is she alright?"

Fuhito took the seat to his left and Makoto could not keep himself from inching away. He knew it wasn't Fuhito's fault - he was here at his granddaughter's request, after all - but Makoto had so much anger and hurt inside of him that he needed it to spill over now, before he saw Kyoko again.

"She wants to stay with you."

Fuhito stared at Makoto for a long moment before nodding. "I see. Well, that won't be a problem."

"I'll bet." Maybe he was being bitter, but Makoto had spent the last seven years knowing Fuhito was hoping one day Kyoko would chose to go home to him instead of to her new life with Makoto.

"I urge you to control your emotions," Fuhito suggested, evenly. "This is not the time nor the place to lash out."

Being rightfully scolded by a man who'd never even liked him to begin with was what did it for Makoto. Tears pricked in his eyes and fell, hot on his flushed cheeks. _It's not fair! None of this is fair!_

" _I'm_ supposed to take care of her."

"I know you _think_ you are the first person to have that responsibility," Fuhito said tightly, "but you are not. She will be quite all right with me."

Makoto wasn't expecting the hand Fuhito placed on his shoulder. When he looked at the other man, something passed between them for the first time - not understanding, but an agreement maybe: an, _I've got this._

"I don't want to lose her," Makoto admitted.

Fuhito dropped his hand and looked away again. "Then let her go," he said, a knowing edge to his voice. It wasn't until later, when he was turning over the conversation in his mind, that Makoto wondered if Fuhito really had been speaking from experience - of a time when it was an invitation to attend Hope's Peak and Kyoko's desire to find her father that was luring her away and he'd had to act like it didn't sting.

When, finally, they could see her, the flush was back in her cheeks but her eyes were so blank, it took Makoto a moment to work up the nerve to speak. Fuhito hung back in the doorway, and whether that was out of respect for their privacy or a genuine discomfort with the situation, Makoto was not sure, but he was thankful for it all the same.

For once, even Makoto didn't know what to say. There were no words of comfort for this moment and so he just took her hand and thumbed her scars. "I should have taken your anesthetic. That was a long time to be alone with your grandfather," he said, lowly. There was a small, broken laugh shared between them, and then Kyoko's eyes filled with tears and Makoto felt his heart break.

"I'm sorry," she said, and he didn't know what she was apologising for, but it didn't matter. He didn't want an apology - he just wanted _her_.

"Stop." He wrapped his arms around her, surprised when she leaned in. "It's okay. It's going to be okay."

Makoto didn't know how long they stayed like that, but it was long enough for the doctor to come around with the discharge form. "You can go home," she told Kyoko, and Makoto wished it didn't hurt that this had her looking to her grandfather and not to him, but it did.

He helped her out of bed and into the same clothes she'd arrived in and then the three of them headed toward the elevator. While they were waiting, a nurse pushed a lady in a wheelchair up behind them while the woman's partner was carrying a newborn in a car seat.

Kyoko's sigh was one of exasperation. "I can't do this," she said, and she took off toward the stairs.

Fuhito moved to go after her, but Makoto stilled him. "Let me," he said. " _Please_."

Fuhito appeared to think about this for a second before relenting. "Very well."

She hadn't made it very far by the time Makoto caught up with her. "It hurts," she said, as he helped her down the first flight of stairs.

"Did they give you any pain meds?"

"They don't help," she said, and it occurred to him she may not have been talking about the physical pain.

He didn't mind that they didn't say much else - he just wanted another few minutes with her. When they got to the bottom floor, he looked around but couldn't spot Fuhito. "He probably went to get the car," he said, turning back to her.

She was wearing the same vacant look she'd had when she drew back the covers and saw the blood. It wasn't her usual 'I'm controlling how I feel' expression. It was almost as if she wasn't feeling anything, period.

"Kyoko?" He put his hand on her back. "What is it?"

"I look at dead things all the time," she said, quietly, "but this was different."

Makoto felt fresh tears well in his eyes. He couldn't imagine the trauma she was battling in that moment. "Kyoko, I'm so sorry."

"I know." Kyoko looked away. She swallowed hard and nodded. "I know."

Makoto thought about putting up a final fight - begging her to come home with him instead, promising her he'd give her whatever space she needed. There was definitely a chance that she'd give in. But if he did that, even if she agreed, it would be for his sake. However much Makoto was torn apart in that moment, he knew it was just a fraction of her pain.

Once, in the beginning, he'd teased that he could read her mind. Now, he wished she could read his, hear the chant, like a spell that would bring her back: _I love you; I love you; I love you._

When Fuhito found them, Makoto took a deep breath, stepped aside and let her walk away.

* * *

It was almost bedtime when Hina dropped Koichi off, and Makoto sent him straight upstairs to brush his teeth.

"I should go," Hina said, even though she hadn't actually come inside. She was unusually awkward as she stood on the doorstep but Makoto couldn't be sure if that was because they hadn't made up properly after their fight, or because of the miscarriage.

"Sure. Um, thanks for having him."

"I'd do anything for you guys," she said, but there was a defensiveness in her voice that wouldn't have been there before - before he questioned her loyalty, and gave her reason to question his. "Goodnight, Makoto."

As Makoto closed the over the book they were reading that night, Koichi asked to call his mother. "She's on a plane right now," Makoto lied. "Maybe you can talk to her tomorrow."

Makoto waited for the inevitable kick off, or even the confusion because Kyoko had been home so much lately, but it didn't come. Tonight, he got lucky and instead, Koichi cuddled closer into him, his little head nestled against Makoto's chest, with nothing more than a disappointed whine.

"I love you, daddy," he said, sleepily. "Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?"

Even though it hurt, Makoto understood why his wife wife had chosen to spend the night at her grandfather's - because her grandfather wouldn't needle her to open up; because being back in the house she grew up in would mean she could pretend none of this ever happened; because she hadn't wanted the reminder of the baby they would never get to meet every time she looked at him, at their son. It was the latter that had worried him, too - until the moment he'd opened the front door and Koichi had ran to him with all the force of a hurricane. As he breathed in the familiar scent of his son, felt his breathing even as he drifted off to sleep, it wasn't painful like he thought it would be. If anything, it was a comfort.

With Koichi in his arms, they were at least not completely empty.

* * *

Makoto took the next day off work and dedicated it to removing every trace that they had been expecting a baby from the house, in preparation for Kyoko's return. When the bloody sheets were spinning in the washer for a second time - just to be sure - and all of the things they'd been sorting through were boxed up again and returned to the attic, there was a knock on the door. He'd been expecting his wife so to instead have to sign for a package was more than a little disheartening.

Worse was the contents of the package. A shirt for Koichi that he himself had ordered just a week ago, after scouring the internet for creative ways to announce a pregnancy to friends and family. The print on the front read _I'm going to be a Big Brother!_ and Makoto promptly lost it.

When he'd calmed down as much as he figured he was going to, he called Kyoko's cell twice, because all he wanted was to talk to someone who understood, but both times, it rang out. It was so hard not to feel angry then, because it didn't seem fair that he should have to navigate the wreckage at home alone and wasn't the whole point of marriage that you got through things _together_? He took the dog for a walk to clear his head, and by the time he returned and still, she hadn't returned the calls, worry had set in. He dug out the number for Fuhito's home phone.

"I don't know what to tell you," Fuhito said, sounding annoyed as if Makoto had asked him to explain the details of an intricate case and not the seemingly easy to answer _how is Kyoko?_ "She'll be fine. She's a Kirigiri."

That...didn't fill Makoto with a lot of relief, but he knew he wasn't going to get much more out Fuhito, so he let it go. The next day, he forced himself to go to work. Kane took one look at him and offered to take all of his meetings for the rest of the week.

"You need your friends at a time like this," he said. Makoto had not realised Kane actually considered him a friend until then, but as he started into the list of mundane things Kane had formulated to keep his distracted, he was grateful for it.

Hina cornered him in the staff hallway on the way to the break room later that day with a very different approach. "What the _hell_ are you doing here?"

"I need a refill." He motioned to the mug in his hand. "You?"

"I mean _at work_." Her hair was wet from swimming and when she shook her head, water flicked in his face. "Makoto! You should be at home with your _wife_."

"My wife isn't at home." He continued past her to the break room, where thankfully, there was no one else. He brewed a fresh cup of coffee and took an apple from the fruit basket by the window.

"Kyoko's still in hospital? And you're _here_? That's even worse!"

"She's staying with her grandfather." At this, Hina pulled a face. "Yeah," Makoto agreed, "that was my reaction too."

"Okay, but I mean, she definitely wants you to go over there and...convince her to come home!" Hina said quickly. "It'll be romantic."

Makoto took a bite of his apple. "Have you ever tried to convince Kyoko to do _anything_? Cause I have. And it's far from a romantic experience, believe me."

"You know what I mean." Hina rolled her eyes. "You just show up with a speech prepared and you tell her how much you love her - "

"- Hina," he interrupted, gently, "She _knows_ that. I've already thought of all this - but I know Kyoko. She doesn't want me to woo her. Right now, she just wants some room to breathe."

(Of course, it was one thing to know that the right thing to do was to give her her space and another thing to be comfortable with the distance.)

She called, for the first time, just after bathtime that night when Koichi was on the cusp of an overtired tantrum because his pajama pants didn't match his top. He brightened up instantly when Makoto held the caller ID for him to see.

"Mommy!" he shrieked, diving for the phone. Makoto let him take the call. He came in and out of the room while they talked, putting things in the bathroom laundry basket, not wanting Kyoko to think he was waiting for her to ask to speak with him - he told himself this was because he didn't want to pressure her, but maybe, deep down, he didn't want her to know how desperate he was. Makoto didn't think he was a particularly proud guy, but something about the way Kyoko pushed him away sometimes had the to ability to flare up a childish flicker of spite.

When, finally, Koichi's voice began to get sluggish, Makoto picked him up and put him in bed. "Say goodnight to Mommy," he instructed, and Koichi mumbled into the receiver before snuggling under the covers.

"Hi," he said, stepping out of their son's bedroom.

"Hi." He could tell she was tired too - both she and Koichi's voices went a little scratchy when they'd gone too long without sleep.

"How are you feeling?"

"Sore," she admitted. "Pain meds are wearing off."

"Fuhito's being sympathetic, I'm sure?"

"Mm. Today he told me that when he was my age he got shot in the shoulder during an investigation and didn't go to the hospital until he solved the case," Kyoko paused, for effect, "three days later."

Makoto couldn't help but snort. "No way is that true."

"Regardless, I gather he was trying to be encouraging."

"I must be a pretty lousy nurse if Fuhito's tough love is preferable," he joked, self-deprecation slipping out before he could stop it - and immediately, he realised what he'd said, and cursed inwardly.

He could tell by her sigh that she didn't find it funny. "Makoto," she said, "don't make this any harder than it already is."

Makoto really didn't think _he_ was the one who had made things so difficult, but he stopped himself from pointing this out. When she made an excuse about a (conveniently timed) headache, he let her hang up the phone without protest.

During his lunch break the next day, he stopped by a florists in town, and then he drove forty minutes out of his way to Fuhito's. He hadn't slept in three days and he was lonely and sad and he was over acting like it was normal for them to be apart when they'd just lost a child. Maybe Hina was right, he thought during the drive. Maybe Kyoko really did want some kind of gesture.

Kyoko was not the one who opened the door. "Makoto?" Fuhito frowned when he took in the sight of him, flowers in his hands.

"Look, I'm not here to bug her. I just want to give her these." He held up the arrangement of orchids - blue dendrobium, to be exact. They were the first flowers he'd ever bought for her, before he could even afford to be buying flowers, but they were so beautiful with their electric blue centre, fading to a brilliant byzantium on the edges of the petals that he hadn't been able to resist. Years later, Kyoko - who was far from a traditional romantic - had a wedding bouquet composed of them and white lilies as tribute.

Fuhito kept the door open just a crack, unwelcoming as ever. "Kyoko isn't here."

"Really?" Makoto stepped down from the doorstep, surprised but also so, _so_ relieved. "She went home? This morning?"

"No. She's working."

The relief quickly died away - whatever hope he had that they were going to figure this out vanished. "Uh, are you _kidding_?" His hold on the flowers tightened. Of course Fuhito had pushed her to get back to work - hadn't she suggested as much on the phone the night before? Fuhito had practically said it himself - _She'll be fine. She's a Kirigiri._ To him, wasn't that all about putting whatever you felt in a box and being a focused, neutral detective in spite of it? "You seriously think that's where she needs to be right now?"

"She's an adult," Fuhito pointed out, his expression hardening. "She is quite capable of dictating that for herself. Now, will that be all?"

"How could you?" Makoto exploded, angry on Kyoko's behalf. He'd given Fuhito the benefit of the doubt a lot over the years, despite what he understood of the way he raised Kyoko, but this wasn't something he could just brush off. What kind of piece of work was her grandfather that he forced her back to work when she reached out to him for solace? "Why would you push her like that? She's obviously not ready."

"You're hearing what you want to hear," Fuhito warned. "I did not push Kyoko to do _anything_. As I said, she is an adult." Fuhito looked very serious when Makoto looked up at him - more serious, he thought than he'd ever seen him look, or at least more sincere. "This was her decision. I was as surprised as you are."

"I don't believe you!"

"Yes, it would appear that is because you do not want to." Fuhito took the flowers from Makoto. "I will put these in water," he said, evenly, "I will tell Kyoko you called. The rest is between you and her."

Makoto handed him the flowers, begrudgingly. It was only on the drive back home that his thoughts turned to practical things: Kyoko hadn't come home to retrieve her stuff, at least to his knowledge. Did that mean she'd kept clothes at Fuhito's this whole time? They'd been together for seven years and married for six. They bought a house together and put meticulous planning and effort into having a family. And yet, in the background the entire time, she'd had a contingency plan?

That evening, when Kyoko called to speak to Koichi, he did not beckon his son in from the yard to talk to her.

"Tell me he pulled some Kirigiri honour bullshit on you," he said, pacing the kitchen. "Tell me this is Fuhito's doing. Tell me he pressured you go back to work."

Of course, Makoto already knew the answer. No one, not even Fuhito, made Kyoko do anything she didn't want to do.

"Makoto, I've been in bed for two days, I needed to... _do_ something." There was a pause. "You get that, right? I'm sure you've gone back to work."

That wasn't the point. "I don't get it actually," he said, coolly. "Tell me Kyoko. Make me understand how is it that you're able to run around solving murders but picking up your kid from school or having like, a _conversation_ with your husband is too much to deal with."

There was a stunned silence on the other end of the phone. "You know why those things are different." _Right_ , Makoto thought numbly, _because for one you need your brain and for the others you need a heart_. "What are you trying to say anyway? Are you accusing me of leaving my child?"

Makoto knew where _that_ was coming from, knew why it was a sore spot - because of Jin. It was a reminder that he was supposed to cut her slack here - because she'd been raised to find validation solely in detective work, or because she hadn't had a lot of love growing up, or because she was in a fire as a kid that after almost a decade of knowing her he still knew jack shit about, or because she was a fucking libra or _whatever_. There was always a reason, always an excuse that he made for her in his mind that would explain why he was being pushed away or how she could be so detached. Except walking out on him in the midst of this particular tragedy didn't feel like Kyoko's attempt at self preservation; it just felt cold.

"I'm saying your priorities are whack," he continued, firm in his resolve, "and I'm not buying for a second that you don't know better."

"Is this how it is now?" She was pissed, which was fine, because he was too. "You're asking me to choose?"

"We had a miscarriage two days ago. For most people it wouldn't be a choice."

" _I_ had a miscarriage," Kyoko corrected sharply, and Makoto stopped still in the middle of the kitchen, certain, for a second, that he had heard her wrong.

He waited for her to redact that - to fumble out an apology. _I didn't mean it,_ she would say, _I know this hurts you too._

It didn't come.

"Well," he said, when he could speak again. "At least now you get to go back to work."

"Fuck you," she spat, stung. "Fuck you, Makoto."

"Fuck _you_!" Makoto could not remember the last time he had properly yelled at Kyoko - maybe, he never had, and this was the first time. "What the hell is this anyway, Kyoko? Are we separated? Cause this doesn't feel like a grief thing."

"If your mind went to divorce this quickly there's more wrong with our relationship than me taking a case."

He hated that - hated the insinuation he was the one driving the distance between them when all he'd wanted for the last seventy-two hours was to pull her close. "My mind is going everywhere because I have no idea what the hell you're thinking." Defeated now, Makoto shook his head. "Kyoko, I'm here trying to give you what _you_ want."

"Do you seriously think there is _anything_ about this situation that I want?" Kyoko fired back. The question hung between them. Makoto's chest ached.

"We need to talk about this." He wasn't angry anymore - well he was, but he didn't want to be. Desperate, he just wanted all of it to stop. " _Please_."

"I don't want to talk to you right now," she said and it hurt, but not as much as the hitch in her voice did: he'd made her cry. "I need to go."

"Kyoko." He rubbed his forehead. "I'm sorry."

After a long beat, she sighed. Her voice was steady when she spoke again. "I know you are. Still, I don't think it's smart to do this right now." Do what? Makoto wondered. Fight? Talk to each other? "I'll call Koichi before bed."

She was true to her word that night and the next night and the night after that. Each time, Makoto handed the phone immediately to his son, and Kyoko hung up the moment she and Koichi had said goodbye, not waiting to speak to him. Makoto no longer knew if they taking the space thing very seriously or just ignoring each other.

In the early hours of the fifth night he was up on the couch, where he was spending a lot of sleepless nights these days, when after the latest victim count of a recent terrorist attack a photo of a Chinese boy a little older than Koichi came up on the screen. He'd disappeared from his school playground months ago and by the time his body was recovered from a local river, they hadn't had much to go on. The reason it was on the local news in Tokyo, was because the case was just today solved by a brilliant Japanese detective. It didn't mention Kyoko by name, but Makoto had already picked up his cell and called her before the segment had even finished.

She answered on the first ring. "Makoto?" she said, urgent. "What's wrong? Is Koichi alright?"

He realised then just how late it was - that the news channel he was watching was the 24 hour coverage.

"He's asleep. I - I just saw the news. Your case?" He pulled a blanket over himself, shivering. "Those poor parents."

"I know."

"You did a good thing, you know." What he wanted to say, but didn't, was that he had been wrong; that he was selfish in wanting her home when he should have known what she was doing was more important; that despite everything, she was the good guy. "They have closure now."

"Do you think there's such a thing?" Kyoko asked, sounding genuinely curious as to his opinion. "When you lose a child?"

Makoto had a feeling they weren't talking about the parents of the murdered boy anymore. "I hope so. I think so. Eventually." In the background, he heard a flight number being called over the intercom. "Do you need to go?"

He wanted more than anything for her to say no. His throat ached with the things he couldn't bring himself to put on her: _I get it if you don't want to be my wife right now, but I still need you to be my best friend._

"Yeah. Listen, can I… well, I wanted to ask you if I could come by and pick up Koichi for a little while tomorrow."

"You don't have to ask," he said, quickly, guilt at the way he'd spoken to her last time setting in. Kyoko was a great mother and he knew how much she loved Koichi, but he'd been hurt and he wanted to hurt her back and taking a jab at her absence in relation to their son had been a shitty way to do that.

"Makoto," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Yes I do. You're the one who's been there every day. I don't get to pick up where I left off."

He didn't want her to feel bad for leaving Koichi - especially now he knew the case she'd been working on was for the justice of someone else's son, but all the same, it was nice to have it acknowledged that he'd been their son's constant. It was nice to feel like Kyoko was mindful of that, at least, and so some of the resentment that had been festering inside him began to fade.

"He'll love that. And you know, so will you." Makoto pulled a thread lose on the blanket in his lap. Tears sprang in his eyes. "Because seriously? I don't think there's a problem in the world that little laugh of his can't fix."

"Thanks for the tip." It was the most civil conversation they had had since the hospital and Makoto was suddenly so glad he'd called, to hell with his pride. He couldn't take another day of hostility. "Is noon okay?"

"Sure. Um, safe flight."

The urge to add, _I love you_ , was an instinctive one, but still, he managed to hold it back.

For now, baby steps were enough.

* * *

They carried on like that for most of the next week - short pleasantries on the phone as it was passed to their son and back again, Kyoko stopping by every other day to take Koichi to lunch or to the park. Makoto had gotten used to her not being around, but for the few hours Koichi was gone too, the house seemed too quiet, too still; he didn't know what to do with his time. On one occasion, he tried to reach out to Byakuya, hoping they could catch up for a drink or something, but he'd gotten a one lined response from his new secretary: _Mr Togami is a very busy man and he's not available right now._

When Kyoko dropped Koichi home on Thursday - they'd been to the movies, and Koichi had pouted when he realised Makoto wasn't coming with them - she didn't leave right away. "My grandfather's fine to have Koichi tomorrow night," she said. "What time do we need to be there? Six?"

She was referring to the anniversary party being held at Hope's Peak, honouring the school's original opening 50 years ago. Makoto been been unsure about making a thing of it, given the very ethos of the school had changed so drastically since then, but then the official school board and the investors and even Byakuya - who, at the time, had been his deputy - advised it was less about embracing the academy's past and more about challenging the media's long-circulating accusation that they were trying to bury it.

It had been planned since the beginning of the year, he knew there was no way he was going to get out of it but he had pretty much taken Kyoko's absence as a given, had already started to think about what he would tell people when they asked where she was. Now, he felt a little stupid for that. Even if she hadn't had such a hand in helping him in the beginning, before all of that, it had been her father's school - she had as much claim to its legacy as he did, if not more.

The next evening, he crossed Fuhito's threshold and watched as Koichi's smile for his great-grandfather turn to a puzzled frown at the sound of his mother's voice. "Mommy's here?" he asked, turning to Makoto for an answer. Koichi was, of course, still under the impression she was working.

While his son emptied the contents of his backpack on Fuhito's living room carpet - sending legos and crayons flying everywhere - Makoto stood in the doorway. Kyoko came out of another room, adjusting her earrings. Fuhito gave them both a look. "You need to sit him down and explain this...situation to him. He's old enough to understand. If you're not careful, he'll begin to draw his own conclusions."

Makoto was still waiting for someone to sit _him_ down and explain the situation; he wasn't sure he was old enough to understand. He met Kyoko's eye and she looked just as apprehensive at the thought of such a conversation as he was. Something about the idea of telling Koichi they were living apart made it so much more real, so much more final.

"Useless," Fuhito grumbled. " _Both_ of you."

On the drive back to town, Makoto loosened his tie and looked across the car at her. "Do you think your grandfather is right? Should we say something to Koichi?"

"We're not taking parenting advice from Fuhito." Kyoko rolled her eyes. "He's a hypocrite. His idea of transparency was waiting to tell me my mother was dead until we were on our way to the funeral."

He understood why to Kyoko, it seemed cruel, but Makoto didn't think that had been Fuhito's intention. Maybe he'd been waiting for Jin to do it, or maybe he put it off because he was trying to stretch out the last few moments of his granddaughter's innocence before her life was torn apart. Makoto couldn't imagine there was a worse thing you could be tasked with telling a child and if that wasn't a wake up call to appreciate the fact that things in his own family could be a thousand times worse than they were, he didn't know what was.

When they arrived, the school was decorated with blue balloons and a banners. Hina was smoothing out the table cloth by the makeshift bar in the gymnasium when they found her.

"You did good," Kyoko said. "It looks great."

Hina smiled at Kyoko's compliment, but she still seemed flustered. "Thanks. Okay, so who's giving a speech?"

"Count me out." Kyoko accepted the champagne flute offered by a caterer. She met Makoto's eyes and as she took a sip. "Do you need me to read over yours?"

"That would be great, actually." He looked over his shoulder. "Is Byakuya here yet?"

"He's not coming," Hina said, hotly. "Why would he? He's never anywhere when we need him to be."

"Uh, okay." He exchanged a look with Kyoko. "Hiro?"

Hina winced. "He thinks there's some kind of 'evil energy' in here so he refuses to leave the conference room."

"And he's not exactly an endorsement for your credibility," Kyoko pointed out.

"Alright." Makoto went back to looking at the small crowd of people who had arrived early. His eyes fell on Kyosuke Munakata - not quite as tall as Makoto remembered, with a neater haircut. He was scrolling through his cell phone, much to the apparent chagrin of Kane, who was trying to strike up a conversation. Makoto hesitated.

Kyoko followed his line of sight before scoffing and turning away again. "Looks like Hiro was right about that dark energy after all."

" _Kyoko_."

"Why is he even here anyway?"

"All of the alumni were invited," Hina explained. She shrugged. "I guess it's good press for him."

Makoto didn't know much of what the Future Foundation was up to these days. Komaru - who still went on missions for them, occasionally - told him it operated more like back up SWOT team, where trained officers like herself were sent into evaluate and diffuse suspected terrorist threats. He didn't love that his little sister had opted for such a risky hobby, but at the same time, he admired her readiness to go into battle for the world at any moment.

"Someone else has to make a speech. It's him or Toko." Makoto was a little alarmed by the fact both Kyoko and Hina seemed to be _considering_ these options. He wasn't Munakata biggest fan by any means, but damn, girls could hold a grudge. "Hina, can you brief him? Tell him to keep it short and you know... _optimistic_. No talking about death or despair or anything like that."

After some brief mingling and another round of champagne, he and Kyoko went to his office so he could run through his speech. It wasn't completely necessary - he made speeches all the time now, but on nights like this, it was easy to feel out of his depth. She made a few minor amendments, chided him for not smiling enough, and then told him he was good to go.

"Thanks," he said, slipping the paper he'd been reading from into the inside pocket of his suit. "I owe you."

Kyoko, who had given her guidance from where she sat, perched on the edge of his desk, picked up one of the framed photos he kept there. His stomach twisted as he came to stand beside her and realised which one she'd picked up.

One was Koichi's most recent school picture; another was of Kyoko and Koichi on a day last summer when they'd gone to the beach. The third one, the one Kyoko was now turning over in her gloved hands, was the twelve week ultrasound of the baby they'd lost.

"I don't know what to do with it," Makoto admitted, shuffling his feet. "It sucks to see it all the time, but it doesn't feel right to just throw it away either."

Kyoko put it back where she found it. Wordlessly, she drew him closer to her, understanding in her eyes. She pressed her lips to his.

It was only a slight brush at first, and then her hands were moving up his chest to his shoulders and she pulled him in deeper, her mouth now working against his jaw, his neck. Makoto's hands went to her waist, to steady them both. He wasn't quite sure how this happened - how they went from not talking to being mad at each other to communicating like business partners to this, this moment, with her tugging at his suit jacket impatiently. He also wasn't sure why it didn't feel like a good thing. Wasn't this what he'd wanted? Kyoko to make the first move? To know she still wanted him?

Instead of being happy, or even caught up in the moment, all Makoto could think of was that the last time they'd touched each other like this, he'd kissed a trail down her chest to her stomach, where their baby had been; that they'd been rougher than usual that night and since then, he'd worried on and off if maybe that had somehow caused the miscarriage.

He wondered if Kyoko was thinking of this too. He wondered if that's why she was so keen, suddenly - if she was trying to replace the memory.

"Kyoko." He eased back. "What are we doing?"

"Isn't it obvious?" She went in for another kiss, more forceful this time. She took his hand from her waist and put it on the inside of her thigh, as if to guide him.

Makoto pulled his hand away. He broke the kiss. He blinked at her, at the way she was looking at him but also looking right through him. "What is this?"

"I need…" Her brow creased, like she was wrestling with the answer herself. "I need to feel close to my husband," she said, her hand working the buttons of his shirt. She tugged him toward her again and when he went still, she frowned, like she didn't understand why that wasn't what he wanted to hear.

It took him a moment to even understand it himself - because he did want to feel connected to her again, more than anything. It was just that sex felt like the lazy way to get there.

Makoto eased her hands off of him and gently, pushed her away. "Then come home."

He let her storm off without trying to follow. She spent the rest of the night avoiding him, except for when they happened to be brought into the same conversation where she gave a performance so convincing it distracted him. There it was, that Kirigiri poker face.

They were complimented at least three separate times on what a beautiful couple they were, and even as they laughed it off in unison, Makoto felt like he was wearing a disguise. _Ultimate frauds._

After the speeches, he thanked Munakata in a quiet corridor away from the crowd. "I appreciate you stepping in, and what you said about how important it is we set the example for the next generation."

"It's a burden we both share," Munakata said, gravely.

"Uh, _right_. Well, thanks again." Makoto held his hand out for Munakata to shake. The other man paused.

"You might take offense to this, Naegi, but I can't help but think that after everything that happened before, you're wasted here. You are welcome to come and spend some time at our new headquarters sometime. I have no doubt you would be of great use there."

"I'll remember that," Makoto said, politely. Munakata shook his hand, finally, and then Makoto was free to excuse himself.

He bumped into Kane while he was looking for Kyoko and Hina. "Your wife certainly is something," he said, with a smile.

"Heh. Yeah."

"Very beautiful," Kane continued. "When do you think you'll have another child?"

Makoto couldn't put his finger on why it struck him as weird, but it did. Maybe it just threw him because it was kind of an inconsiderate thing to ask of a couple who you knew had just lost a baby, particularly when you were aware they'd had to go to great lengths to get pregnant. It was rude and it was forward, in a way Kane usually wasn't - but then, Makoto thought, there was a lot of free alcohol flowing.

He brushed off Kane's question and found the girls by the bar, prepared to tell them about Munakata's offer, but something stopped him: probably, the fact that he already knew what they would say. He put it to the back of his mind and tried to pass the rest of the night as smoothly as he could.

He wasn't alone again with Kyoko until the car ride home. Uncomfortable with the awkwardness, Makoto tried to make conversation. "The storm is supposed to get worse," he said, while rain drops hammered against the windscreen. "I heard there's going to be thunderstorms most of the night."

Kyoko stared out the window into the darkness. She didn't speak.

"What did you think of my deputy? Kane?" This question was a serious one - because he'd gotten a weird vibe, and he wanted to know if it was founded and even now, with everything going on between them, there was no one whose judgement he trusted more than hers.

"Nothing," she said, blankly.

"Kyoko, it's a _long_ drive to Fuhito's in silence."

"I don't think anything about your deputy," Kyoko corrected pointedly, turning to him, "because he spent the night avoiding me."

Makoto frowned. "Why would he do that?"

"You tell me. I'm guessing it has something to do with whatever you told him about our marriage and the fact that we just lost a baby." Kyoko straightened up in her seat. "Neither of those things make for appealing conversation."

Makoto didn't think there was any point in making the distinction that he hadn't actually told Kane anything about their marriage."Well, what were your first impressions? Based on your introduction."

"There wasn't an introduction," Kyoko said, sounding annoyed. "I saw him a few times, but he never came over. I can take a hint and I'd rather someone say nothing than say something stupid. Why do you care about this, anyway?"

"No reason." A moment passed. Makoto glanced at her. "He said you're beautiful."

She sighed. "And what, you're jealous?"

"No." He didn't think that was why it had rubbed him wrong - for one, Kane was gay, and besides, he and Kyoko had enough actually going on for him to stress about, there wasn't enough hours in the day to let insecurities about her and other men slip in. "It's just...he's right. And I should have been the one to say it." Even when he looked back the road, he could feel Kyoko staring at him. "I thought it, for the record. A lot. But I'm trying this new thing where I don't just say the first thing I think all the time."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." He had a thought. "I'm trying get to get the girl I've had a crush on since forever to talk to me, you see, so I'm playing it cool."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see this amused her. "You're too smart to think that's a good strategy."

"I'd try anything," Makoto admitted.

"You should be proud of yourself, you know," Kyoko said, turning back to look out the window and changing the subject. "There were a lot of people there tonight who believe in good things because of you, because you inspire them."

" _Inspired_." Makoto shrugged. "All of that was a long time ago."

"You're still the same person." When he didn't respond to that, Kyoko sighed. "Whatever. If it matters, I'm proud of you."

By the time they got to Fuhito's, it was late late - but still, they entered the house to the sound of Koichi's chattering. When he saw them, he quickly hopped off his great grandfather's knee to run to his mother, whatever he and Fuhito were discussing forgotten instantly. "Welcome to my life," Makoto joked, when he noticed the older man looking a little affronted.

"Mommy, mommy, mommy." Koichi erupted in giggles as Kyoko spun him around. "Mommy I'm _dizzy_."

"You'll make him sick," Fuhito scolded.

They stopped spinning. Kyoko adjusted Koichi in her arms. He rested his head against hers, his eyelids heavy.

"Are you coming home with me, Mommy?" he asked, softly.

Makoto turned away, started to discuss the storm with Fuhito, not wanting to intrude on the moment between Kyoko and Koichi and half afraid of what her response would be. He only turned back when he heard Koichi start to cry.

There were sleepy tears, stuttery like a car engine failing to start up, but it only took a few seconds for them to break into a hysterical kind of cry, the one usually reserved for skinned kneecaps and broken toys, the one that meant _I don't know enough words to tell you why it hurts._ Even as he became breathless from sobbing, Koichi kept his hold around Kyoko's neck. She looked at Makoto, as if to say _help me,_ but physically pulling a small, sad child away from his mother wasn't something that he was going to do for the sake of maintaining a schedule.

"He should stay here with you tonight," Makoto said, over the top of Koichi's cries.

He could tell Kyoko had not expected this. She looked at him as if he had given her a gift. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah." Makoto stepped forward to look at his son. "It's okay, bud. You can stay with Mom. Won't that be fun? A sleepover at Grandpa Kiri's?"

"There's a storm coming," Kyoko pointed out. "You shouldn't be driving. You should stay too."

By now, Koichi had calmed down to where only whimpers were bubbling over. "Daddy?" he whined, "I want Daddy too."

Makoto wondered if Kyoko felt like as much of a failure as he did in that moment, as their child looked between them, teary-eyed, and because of the mess they'd made of things, felt like he had to choose.

"You do realise this is _my_ house and not a hotel?" Fuhito asked.

"He's right," Makoto said. He cupped Koichi's cheek. "It's an imposition."

"Hardly." Kyoko shook her head. "We have three guest rooms. Really. You should stay." Makoto knew it wasn't just Kyoko trying to make his life more convenient, to save him this wasted trip or keep him from having to drive through a storm. It was a peace offering and one Makoto accepted. He spared a sympathetic look at Fuhito as Kyoko led him out of the room.

The walls of her teenage bedroom were dark purple, the first splash of colour he'd seen in the otherwise grey house. There were fairy lights strung above the bed and antique dolls on a shelf above the desk. He smirked. "Nice."

She glared, but there was no malice behind it. "Shut up." As he laid Koichi down on the twin bed, she took off her earrings and tied her hair up. "I'm just going to go change. I'll be right back."

"Mommy," Koichi mumbled, sleepily clenching and unclenching his fists, as if to grasp hold of her.

"Hey, shh. She'll be right back."

Koichi continued to whine, so Makoto stoked his forehead to soothe him, a trick from when he was a restless baby. He'd just nodded off when Kyoko returned in a silk nightgown that hit her just above the knee. Makoto only meant to glance at her in acknowledgement, not wanting to make things weird, but then he spotted a dark stain by her right breast and suddenly, he couldn't look away.

Her milk had come in.

She caught him staring. "Some things the hospital doesn't tell you," she said, rueful. She grabbed a cardigan that had been slung over her desk chair and wrapped it around herself.

"I didn't even think," Makoto said, dazed, like someone had whacked him on the side of the head, or, more accurately, like someone had whacked him back a whole week in the grieving process. Any dealing he'd done with the loss disappeared at the jarringness of such a physical reminder. _We were supposed to have a baby, but we don't anymore._

He couldn't imagine then, how it must have felt for her. Makoto had been able to wash the bedsheets and send the package with the 'big brother' shirt back; what was Kyoko supposed to do, when the reminder that taunted her was her own body?

"Yeah," she said, sitting down on the bed and crossing her legs under her. "Neither did I."

"Isn't there anything you can do to stop it?"

"Sure, but it's already starting to dry up." Kyoko shrugged. "As annoying as it is, it's also the only proof I have there was ever a baby to begin with."

The emotional ache was at least something Makoto could relate to. He himself had not yet reconciled that something that had been so real to them could just stop existing one day and leave them with nothing but dreams; just as Kyoko's body was struggling to figure it out, he didn't know what to do with all the leftover love he'd had for the baby.

"I've been reading two bedtime stories," he admitted, running a hand through their sleeping son's hair. His eyes filled with tears the second they met with Kyoko's. "Just in case it's somewhere...listening - I dunno, it's stupid."

"Does it help?"

He thought about lying, but he knew she'd be able to tell. "Not yet." Makoto wiped his eyes. "Some day though, maybe it will."

He slept in her room that night, their son asleep between them so soundly it almost seemed as if the storm outside was only in their imagination. When he woke up to sun burning through a crack in the curtains, there was a shooting pain in his lower back from sleeping on the edge of the too-small-for-three-people bed.

Kyoko was awake too and looked like she had been for some time. She turned to face him, almost falling off the bed as she did so. Makoto smirked and after a second, she returned it.

"Do you remember our first apartment after we left the Future Foundation?" she asked. "We were barely scraping money together to pay rent. We slept in a twin bed for _months_."

"Yeah." Makoto chuckled at the memory. "I used to sleep wrapped around you the whole night. You hated it."

"It wasn't the worst," Kyoko replied, impartial. "I played it up a little." She hitched herself up on her elbow to eye him more carefully. "Does it seem like a lifetime ago to you?"

Makoto didn't know if she meant that specific period of time, or the infatuation that came when you first fell in love, the feeling that nothing else mattered so long as you were together. "I guess," he said. "Sometimes, I think everything was easier then or even before, with all of the despair stuff. Is that dumb?"

"It wasn't easier," Kyoko said, dropping her head to the pillow with a sigh. "But we were better at it than we are at this." _This_ meaning marriage, grief, the terrible things that happened sometimes in life that not even the most thorough investigation or the best luck could provide a reason for.

But still, Makoto knew there was still a place for hope - maybe now more than ever. "We're going to be okay, Kyoko. I _know_ it."

After a moment, she spoke again, changing the subject. "Do you two have plans for today?"

"We were gonna stop by Komaru's later, but I can go by myself," Makoto offered. "You can have him."

"Actually, I was thinking we could do something. The three of us."

 _The three of us_. Magic words to Makoto's ears. And so, after breakfast, they set off for a local forest. The ground was wet from all the rain, and Makoto wished he'd gone home to change first so his dress shoes wouldn't get so banged up, but he hadn't wanted to risk a detour in case Kyoko changed her mind.

During the storm, a tree had been struck by lightning. It was blown apart, charred branches hung low from the angry orange centre, bark half-peeled. Koichi touched the trunk gingerly, then pulled his hand away, claiming it was hot to touch.

Kyoko took off a glove to press her palm just above the spot were Koichi had. She shook her head - _he's lying_ \- and Makoto shrugged. Koichi's attention quickly turned to a passing squirrel, and they were following him deeper into the woods, his testing of the truth forgotten.

When he'd grown tired of the trip's educational aspect - because the difference in animal tracks and the various ways to tell north without a compass could only appeal to a four-year-old mind for so long, no matter how interesting Kyoko tried to make them - Koichi begged them to play hide and seek.

"No way," Makoto said, instantly. "What if we lose you?"

"You can use the compass." He gestured to the one Kyoko had drawn in the dirt.

They exchanged a look, not knowing if he was being serious or a smartass.

"If you run off," Kyoko warned, very seriously, "you will be in so much trouble when we get you back."

"What if I hide so well you can't ever find me?" Koichi tested.

Kyoko narrowed her eyes. "You think _I_ won't find you?"

Koichi giggled under the heat of his mother's glare. Brave boy, Makoto thought. "I'm _joking_ , Mommy. I'll stay close. Promise."

Kyoko held out her pinky to link with his. When he pulled it back, she held tighter. "You can't go past where we saw the racoon prints. Do you remember?"

It was only a few yards from where they were - on the other side of a small clearing. There weren't many trees in this part to hide behind and no beds of water. Makoto still wasn't comfortable with the idea, but Kyoko's rules (and her threat) had rendered it pretty lacking in terms of danger.

"If me or Daddy call you by your full name, you stop hiding and you yell out to us. Do you understand?"

"Okay." Koichi was bouncing on the balls of his feet, eager to get going.

Kyoko sighed. "You two go hide. Be quick. I'm only counting to ten."

" _You_ can't search! That's _cheating_."

"Alright," Makoto said, waving them off. "I got this."

He counted back from twenty loudly, although he sped through the last five numbers, sure they were both hidden by now. He turned around and started back to the clearing, peering behind trees as he did so.

"Found you," Kyoko declared, behind him suddenly. He jumped, startled.

"I'm supposed to find _you_."

"I thought you could use a clue." Kyoko pointed to the clearing entrance. "I saw Koichi eyeing a log earlier. I assume he was sizing it up to see if he could fit inside."

So that's why she'd been so lenient about letting him hide - she already knew where to find him. Kyoko was always so good at reading their son. _It's my job_ , she said once, and Makoto hadn't known if she meant being a detective, or being a mother.

"You guys are so good at this!" Makoto called out, feigning oblivion, with a wink at Kyoko.

"I'll go hide again." Kyoko turned, but Makoto's hand on her arm, moving of its own violation, stopped her.

"Wait." He gave a shrug and dropped his hand. "I-I just wanted to say that I'm glad we did this today. Thanks for suggesting it."

What he wanted to say, really, was that he was felt like an idiot for the moments over the last week and a half when he'd let himself think they'd drifted apart, or that the seven year itch was a real thing or that maybe this was just what happened when you got married young. After just a few hours with her, he was convinced this was how you knew you'd found your soulmate: when, after the worst fight of your lives, you were able to dust each other off and fall in love all over again.

Maybe it was for that same reason that Kyoko knew what he was really saying.

"You said we'll be okay," was her explanation for the unexpected gesture. "You've never been wrong about that before. I just forget, sometimes, to believe you." When she looked at him, her eyes were soft and sincere. He felt a tug in his chest as if she were placing her trust in him for the first time all over again. "I remember now," she said, simply.

"Does this mean you're coming home?" he asked, too quickly. As he felt a blush rising in his cheeks, Kyoko smiled.

"I thought you were playing it cool?"

"I'm, ah, too smart for that."

Kyoko stepped forward, but before she could say or do anything, they heard a shriek. _Koichi_.

They ran in the direction of the noise - the clearing, then the log where Kyoko predicted he would be, but he wasn't inside. He was standing behind it instead, shaking. Naturally, Kyoko reached him first. As Makoto caught up, she was already crouched in front of their son, holding him at arms length as she cast her eyes over him, examining.

"What is it? Are you hurt?"

Koichi shook his head. He pointed to something behind him. Makoto took hold of Koichi's shoulder as Kyoko passed him over. Makoto peered over her head, unsure what he was expecting, but definitely surprised to see a dead fox.

After some poking, Kyoko turned to Koichi. "It's alright," she said, sounding a little disappointed at his lack of interest in the animal corpse. "Everything dies, Koichi. There are no obvious wounds, so it probably didn't suffer."

Makoto winced. Kyoko was a great mother, but she definitely lacked the tact to handle situations like this. "Remember Bubbles?" he said, squeezing Koichi's shoulder to get his attention. Bubbles was a fish won at the fair that died after two weeks, as predicted by Kyoko, leaving Koichi inconsolable. The only thing that had given him any kind of closure had been the funeral they held in the backyard. Makoto had even helped him recite a prayer they found online over the makeshift grave and Kyoko, who insisted Makoto was making much too big of a deal about the whole thing, had refrained from injecting her usual cynicism when she realised it had helped their son.

Now, Makoto was worried maybe Kyoko had been right. Had he accidentally given his son a complex about death?

"It's not like Bubbles!" Koichi insisted fiercely. "The bad guy did this!"

"Don't you think it's more likely it was the storm?" Kyoko tried, but Koichi wasn't having it.

"No!" He stomped his feet. "I saw her!"

Makoto and Kyoko blinked at each other. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

" _The bad guy!_ The one I saw before."

"At the school?" Kyoko asked, catching up quicker than Makoto was. Wait - was Koichi talking about _Maida_? "If that's true, where did she go?"

Koichi did a 180 degree turn and then helplessly shook his head. "I don't know. She told me to close my eyes and when I opened them, she was gone."

Kyoko looked up to Makoto. "Take him to the car. I'll be there in a minute."

Makoto carried Koichi back through the woods, unable to shake the feeling he was being watched, but near-certain it was his mind playing tricks. He strapped Koichi into his car seat and turned on the radio for him to listen to. When he saw Kyoko coming, a little while later, he got out to talk to her so Koichi wouldn't overhear them.

"Did you find anything?"

"There were no footprints, but the ground _was_ drier there because of the trees." Kyoko leaned against the car, her arms folded. "What are you thinking?"

Makoto looked around, at the empty parking lot by the forest's entrance. "There's no one here but us."

"Have you had any more trouble with that girl? The one he's talking about?"

"She's pretty much stopped coming to school. I think she has some personal stuff going on." The last time he'd seen her, she was yelling at Itoh Sotan, her boyfriend of seven months, in the parking lot. As he approached, concerned, she ran off. Itoh had yelled after her that she was a 'crazy bitch.' "I don't think she's focused on me right now."

Kyoko glanced at their son, flipping through a book in the backseat of the car. "You think he's lying?"

"He has a wild imagination," Makoto pointed out. Koichi was smart enough to know that embellishing things made for a better story - it was why he had said earlier the tree, struck by lightning, was hot to touch or, two days ago, that he'd seen the dog fly. "And maybe he's not even doing it intentionally. It could just be that he saw the dead fox and it triggered the memory of the dead cat…"

" - wrong." Kyoko shook her head. "Think about it."

"He didn't see the dead cat," Makoto corrected, realising the contradiction. "Really? You think my student is stalking me?"

"I think it would be naive to rule it out." Kyoko nodded toward the car. "Come on. Let's get him home."

It was a little hard to be interested in the Maida situation when he was so distracted by having Kyoko back. She fell asleep on the couch that night, the laptop she had open to research Maida abandoned. He scooped her up and attempted to carry her upstairs, the most romantic part of which ended up being her laughing into his neck as he tried to not let her slip out of his arms for the second time.

Surprisingly, he had been able to carry her once - on their wedding night, as per every ridiculous cliche ever and in hindsight, maybe the buzz from the champagne at the reception and the shiny new high of having gotten the girl of his dreams to agree to forever with him had made it seem a less impossible feat.

"I feel like I used to be stronger," Makoto sighed now, as he half dropped her onto the bed.

Kyoko smirked and began taking off her clothes. "You weren't. I used to be lighter."

He hesitated by the side of the bed. "Do you want me to sleep downstairs? I won't take it personally or anything."

"I think…" Kyoko hesitated, before pulling back the duvet fully - an invitation. "Makoto, I can't think of anything I want _less_."


	3. Chapter 3

For the next few months, things were normal - easy and good _,_ the way they had been before.

Maybe Makoto was naive for expecting it to stay that way, or maybe it was just wishful thinking. Like he should be so lucky.

He wasn't prepared for Kyoko to pencil another appointment at the fertility clinic into the kitchen calendar. When he noticed it, his stomach flipped.

"Um, Kyoko?" he pointed to calendar and tightened his hold on his mug of coffee. "What's that?"

She didn't look up from the homework she was helping Koichi with - basic Kanji spellings, although she'd taken it upon herself to up the difficulty and introduce their English and Manderin translations as well. "What's what?"

"Um, the appointment?" Makoto took a long sip of coffee, but once he swallowed, his mouth was dry as dust again.

"Oh, yeah, I meant to tell you." Met with his silence, she finally lifted her head. "What is it? If you have meetings that day I can go alone."

"It's not that." He nodded towards the hallway. "Can we talk for a sec?"

Kyoko sighed, but got up from the table, spelling book in hand. "So you can't cheat," she warned Koichi, who gave a sullen pout in response. Makoto shut the door to the kitchen behind them so their son wouldn't overhear.

"We should hold off," he said, before he lost his nerve. "I don't think...Kyoko, this isn't the right time."

She folded her arms. "Why not?"

There was a list of reasons, really, and she _had_ to know that. Makoto had never been the practical one and even he knew it was a terrible idea. They hadn't had a single conversation about their separation, or the miscarriage or any of the things they'd said to each other during that time. They were pretending it hadn't happened, obviously, which was fine if it got them through the worst of it but wasn't a great basis for bringing another kid into the world.

The thought of losing another baby terrified Makoto especially because it came with the very real risk of losing Kyoko as well, but it still felt like too much of a touchy subject to raise. He worried, too, that she would be able to talk him out of his concerns or, worse, she'd take it as a rejection.

So Makoto cited money instead. "We should work on putting money back into our savings," he insisted. "IVF's expensive, you know? Let's take some time and save."

While, technically, they could afford another cycle, it wasn't a lie that it certainly wasn't the best financial decision they could be make right now. It wasn't like there was a big rush anyway, Makoto reasoned. They were still so young.

For a few days, Kyoko seemed to have accepted this, until the appointment edged closer and he noticed it still written on the calendar. When he questioned her about cancelling it, she said that there would be no need, thanks the delayed payout from an old case.

Makoto spent the day before the appointment trying to find the words to tell her that money hadn't been the (only) issue - that he still wanted to take a rain check on the whole thing. He put it off until Koichi was tucked up in bed and then, in the end, she beat him to it.

"I need to tell you something," she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and pulling her knees to her chest where she sat on the couch.

Every time she had said something to that effect since they first started sleeping together, one of the first possibilities that sprang to Makoto's mind was that she was going to say she was pregnant. This was the first time in all that time that the prospect filled him with dread and guilt and fear and not excitement.

"Oh?" he tried, and failed, to sound calm.

"The money didn't come from a case, Makoto." Kyoko looked up at him. "My grandfather wrote me a cheque."

His mouth fell open. For a long moment, they just stared at each other. "W-what did you just say?"

Her eyes slipped away from his, guiltily. "You heard correctly."

Makoto couldn't believe that: Kyoko was brutally honest and trustworthy and she didn't go behind his back, least of all to her _grandfather_ for _money_. She was too proud for that, too independent and stubborn. And in what world was Fuhito cutting out cheques to fund their lifestyle anyway?

"There's no way," he said, blankly.

"I should have spoken to you first, but I knew you'd never let me take it."

"Damn right I wouldn't have, Kyoko - what the _hell_? Were you going to mention it, or were you just going to let your grandfather buy us a baby without telling me?" He demanded, furious. "Did you even think about what that would be like for us - for the kid? He thinks he owns you and Koichi as it is."

"Which is why I let him think it was for Koichi's school tuition."

"That's even _worse_!" At his yell, she flinched, but Makoto couldn't find it in himself to lower his voice. "That's practically stealing!"

She had the audacity to scoff. "My grandfather isn't exactly struggling for money, Makoto."

"That doesn't change the fact that you lied to him and to me. How are you seriously still defending that? Can you hear yourself? _Who are you?_ "

"I don't know," Kyoko said, quietly. She rested her head against the back of the couch, frowning listlessly up at the ceiling. "I just thought if we had the money, you'd be happy about it."

Makoto could hear the implication of that - _I thought you'd be happy but you're not._ It explained why she was telling him now. Did that mean if he had been happy about it, or just more convincing, she would have gone ahead with it?

"You didn't do this for me, you did it for you." Makoto grabbed his keys from the coffee table, knowing he had to take a drive before he said something he would regret. He didn't turn around when she called to him.

He didn't come home until he was sure she'd be in bed. He slept on the sofa and turned over the situation in his mind until it didn't seem so uncharacteristic of her anymore. Hadn't he always loved how fiercely Kyokowent after what she wanted? Hadn't it been endearing to him, once, how she could remain so unwaveringly fixated on a single goal? Did it only seem like such a shock now because he'd forgotten what it felt like to be collateral damage in the wake of her determination?

He spent the next day feeling a lot like he had just been thrown under the bus and down a trash chute all over again, except nowhere near as forgiving.

She showed up in his office in the afternoon with an apology that seemed sincere, but no explanation. Makoto coolly told her they would talk about it at home and she left, visibly hurt, so it wasn't much of a surprise when he later received a text that said was meeting Hina for drinks after work. She got in sometime after eleven. He watched her almost lose her balance twice as she attempted to take off her boots.

"Are you _drunk_?"

"Little bit." Sitting on the edge of the bed, she looked over her shoulder at him, the smile she was wearing disappearing when their eyes met. "Oh. You're angry. I forgot."

He didn't think for a minute that she'd actually forgotten - more likely, she just assumed he would pretend it hadn't happened, like he usually did. It would have been easy to let it go, to beckon her into bed because a drunk Kyoko was endlessly amusing - last time, she'd fallen asleep in his arms after hours of sprouting random trivia and giggling at every kiss he gave her.

 _She already apologised,_ his mind reasoned. _Let it go._

Because he was tired of people taking his softness for granted, he got out of bed, intending to go downstairs. He'd only gone to bed in the first place in the hopes they could talk when she got home. If Kyoko really cared about fixing things, he figured, she wouldn't have come home drunk. "You shouldn't be drinking."

He meant because of the medication she was on, hormones and other fertility drugs, in preparation for the latest IVF cycle. He didn't think it made a huge deal, but the doctor had warned against alcohol consumption for best results. Although, on seconds thoughts, that hardly mattered now.

"Why?" Kyoko flopped back on the bed. "It's not like I'm pregnant, is it?"

Makoto ignored the edge to her voice and gathered his phone and the book he was reading. "We'll talk when you're sober," he said.

"You'd get it if your body was the one that kept screwing up," Kyoko said, stopping him in his tracks. He turned to her, perfectly still where she lay.

"I've told you, it's not your fault."

Abruptly, Kyoko sat up to face him, her eyes wide and blank. "Do you think you saying that makes me feel any less _empty_?"

He didn't know why that struck him so hard, but it did. As much as he'd grieved their lost baby, as hard as it had been for him, he _was_ feeling better - if she had to be drunk to be comfortable enough to tell him that she _wasn't_ , obviously he wasn't being as attentive as he thought he was. All the while he'd been afraid to bring it up to her, maybe she'd been afraid to bring it up to him.

"You sleep here." Kyoko stood up, staggering only a little before steadying herself. "I'll go downstairs. I'm not tired anyway."

He didn't stop her, but the next morning, he got up early to make her a cup of coffee and woke her up with a kiss to the cheek. She sat up, sluggish, and he joined her on the couch.

"You don't have to forgive me, you know," Kyoko said, suddenly very interested in the pattern on the side of the mug to avoid looking at him. "I went too far. I betrayed your trust. You get to be mad about this for a long time."

"I am mad," Makoto admitted. He slipped an arm around her waist and pressed his face against her neck. "But you're my favourite person in the world. You know I'd forgive you anything."

"Maybe you shouldn't this time." Kyoko stilled, her tone serious. "Maybe I crossed a line."

"Then it's my job to pull you back." Makoto shrugged. "That's what marriage is about."

This came back to bite him less than a week later, when he received an email from Munakata in the wake of a terrorist attack on a Japanese college. _My offer still stands: your assistance would be appreciated, Naegi._

"Listen, I know you're not crazy about this - "

" - That's quite the understatement." As he sorted through his wardrobe, tossing clothes into a bag, Kyoko was unpacking it. He tried (and failed) to prise a pair of his trousers out of her hands.

" _Kyoko_." He blew air in her face in an effort to deter her, but even as her bangs feathered and her eyes shut, her hold remained just as tight. He gave up and whined instead. "You're being difficult."

"I'm being a good wife," she corrected, smoothing the fabric over her knee to get rid of the wrinkles. "You're having some kind of early mid-life crisis and I'm pulling you back from it. That's marriage, remember?"

He sighed. He understood her objection to him working with the Future Foundation and he valued her opinion, but he couldn't shake the desire to feel useful again. He was tired of seeing carnage on the news and putting it to the back of his mind just because it didn't directly involve him. What if, instead of changing the channel, he could have a hand in changing the world?

"I love you for looking out for me," he said, giving the trousers another gentle tug, "but I need to do this. What if next time something bad happens, it's my school? Or what if it's Koichi's?"

With a sigh, Kyoko released her hold. "So that's all this is? You want to stop the terrorists?"

"' _All'_?" Makoto packed the trousers away and zipped the bag before Kyoko would yank out anything else. "I didn't realise that was me aiming low, but sure."

"I meant is that the only reason you're going."

Makoto moved the bag to the floor so he could sit down beside his wife on their bed. "What other reason would there be?"

Kyoko didn't miss a beat before replying, "Me."

" _You_?"

"You don't want a baby, you _do_ want couples counselling - now you're accepting a frankly ridiculous offer to get out of town." Kyoko shrugged but continued, "I'm trying not be _that girl_ who thinks her husband is going to walk out on her because her father did but - Makoto, you're really not making it easy right now."

"It's not that I don't _want_ a baby - you know that. And couples counselling is just to help us communicate, and I get it's not your thing,which is why I dropped it." He nudged her with his elbow, and when she turned to him, he pressed their foreheads together. "And you're too good of a detective to not...uh, _detect_ , the way I look at you; the way that I've _always_ looked at you. I'm not going anywhere, ever. You're stuck with me." He brought a hand up to thumb her cheek. "You trust me, don't you?"

"Of course." She turned her head out of his touch, but leaned in when he pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Regardless, I still don't trust Munakata." Despite this, the next day, as he stood in front of the hallway mirror and fixed his tie, she nodded her approval from the stairs. "You look very smart. And official."

"Thanks. Um, Kyoko? What do I say when they ask me what I've been _doing_ this whole time?" It had been eight years since the last killing game, and all he really had to show for it was a haphazard career as headmaster of a school that wasn't anywhere near as prestigious as it had once been. It was quite a downgrade from the reputation he'd held before.

"Tell them the truth - that you were living your life." Kyoko frowned. "There's no shame in being normal. You didn't sign up to fight every battle."

She drove him to the airport. He'd said his goodbyes to Koichi that morning before school and it had been every bit as horrible as he imagined it would be. Kyoko assured him Koichi would be alright and Makoto knew he would be, but that didn't make not knowing when he was going to hug him again any easier. Heartbroken at the sight of Koichi's tears when he told him he had to go away for work, he'd asked Kyoko how she did it, how she reconciled missing their son with what she had to do. He expected her to say something about teaching Koichi that he couldn't always have what he wanted, or that it was important to maintain who she was while still being a mother. _I tell myself I'm making the world safer for him,_ she said instead, and so Makoto took this wisdom and tucked it away for the hard nights to come.

At the departure gates, Kyoko huffed. "You know you've always been extra pretty when you're thinking that I'm an idiot," Makoto teased.

He couldn't tell if this amused her or if she was just humouring him. "I must be beautiful right now then."

" _Breathtaking_." He launched kisses at her, one after another after another and so on, not stopping even when a stewardess called his flight.

Kyoko broke away first. He could tell by the way her swollen lips twitched she was trying not to smile. "You'll miss your flight."

"I'll bring you home a souvenir," he said, pressing a final kiss to her cheek, "Remember the pens that had lasers at the top? Those were cool."

"I'd settle for you home in one piece," Kyoko countered, tugging on his tie. "Promise me you'll be safe. I can't swoop in and rescue you if you take risks: you need to be _smart_."

He didn't want to break that promise, so he did his best. Munakata seemed pleased to see him and immediately took him on a tour of the headquarters. It was much like Komaru had described, all glass walls and group offices, transparent and modest and nothing like the building he'd once worked at, where he'd brought the girl he was married to now endless coffees and tried for months to work up the courage to ask her out.

Munakata's staff seemed to have known he was coming. They were very welcoming, especially one in particular - a green haired woman with striking eyes, who beamed up at him from her wheelchair.

"Makoto Naegi," Monaca Towa greeted him. "At last we meet!"

"Uh, hey." Technically, the only time they had met previously was through a electronic puppet. "Last I heard you were in space."

"Sure. That was fun for a while. But then I got bored, you know? Monaca likes to be entertained."

"S-sure. Makes sense." Makoto knew it had been Komaru's belief that Monaca would come back eventually and team with Hope, she just needed to grow up a little first. Still, he knew Kyoko would tell him not to trust her. He turned to Munakata. "We should get going?"

The next few days passed in a blur. He was introduced to so many new people - people who already knew of him, and who seemed to think that meant they were old friends - that he started keeping a log of the names in the note section of his cellphone. Munakata had him out to dinner every night with a group of division heads, who laughed at all of his jokes and asked questions about Junko's game like it were a conspiracy theory they only half believed in, all dark glee and anticipation. Stil, they were all kind enough to understand when he left before drinks each time to call home.

On the fifth day he was sent on his first mission - a level two risk, which was, from what Makoto gathered, the norm: low risk, but low reward in terms of information. He'd had some training, but he knew he was mostly sent along to watch. Before he left, he tried to surrender the gun in the holster on his hip to Munakata.

"I'm not going to use this," he insisted.

"You will do whatever you have to do to get out of there alive," Munakata warned, pushing Makoto's hand away. "I do not want to deal with the wrath of your friends and family, Naegi."

For all the fuss, the mission was without incident. A lone gunman had held up a hospital and was ranting about how damned the world was, how it would have been better if despair had triumphed. The man appeared to be in his sixties, but he had the hesitation of a man much younger, and was easily taken down by much bigger members of the team Makoto belonged to. He volunteered to be one of the few who escorted the fugitive to police custody and while his superior was busy signing off the exchange, he managed to charm a station clerk into letting him talk with the man.

"Hello, sir," he said as he came into the room. "I'm Makoto Naegi."

"Everyone knows who you are," the man said, bitterly. He was handcuffed, but that didn't stop him from thrashing against the table as Makoto sat down. "My wife died because of your ideals."

"Oh." Makoto frowned. "I'm so sorry. I hate that _anyone_ had to die. What was her name?"

The man seemed to be debating as to whether he wanted to disclose this information. After a moment, he muttered, "Kaiya."

"That's a beautiful name. What was she like?"

"Good." The man's eyes filled with tears. He looked smaller and older then, more fragile and so much less scary. "She was good - so good. She loved animals. She loved tending to her garden. She loved the world. She wanted the world to be saved. She said you would be the one to do it. But they killed her for it."

 _They_. The real despair sympathizers. This man wasn't the problem, he was a victim.

"How long were you married?"

"Twenty-nine years. I promised her I would take her to Paris for our next anniversary but she died before - " He began to thrash against the table again. "This is all your fault! You did this! I wish despair woulda won. I'd still have Kaiya. I'd still have her. If it weren't for you and that stupid hospital. I told them to keep trying to resuscitate her, but they said she was gone. She wasn't! I knew she wasn't. I knew -"

When Makoto put his hand on top of the man's, he went still and quiet.

"Kaiya's garden...I bet you keep it up for her now?"

In the creases of the man's hand were dry dirt stains, but even without that observation, Makoto could have made the same guess. It was the same reason Fuhito had kept Kyoko's childhood bedroom the same despite the years that had passed, or why Makoto had found a quiet place in the local park under the cherry blossoms that he went sometimes to daydream about the baby that could have been - when you weren't ready to let go of someone you loved, you sought out and preserved some corner of the world where you still had them.

"I'm not good at gardening," Kaiya's husband admitted, sadly.

"Sure, but I bet it would make her happy to know you're looking after it. I bet she would like that you feel the peace that she used to feel when she was out there. I think," Makoto hesitated, "I think that's the kind of legacy a woman like your wife deserved, not one with more bloodshed. I think you _not_ doing what you could have done today would have made her proud."

Makoto wasn't sure which part of it made the man break down, but break down he did. Makoto stayed with him until the detective came to book him. In the hallway, Munakata was waiting.

"You need to talk to the officers here and tell them to let him go."

"How can you be married to a detective and have such a lack of understanding of the _law_?" Munakata scoffed. "Naegi, he held a hospital ward at gunpoint. He's going to die in prison."

"That's not fair!" Makoto insisted. "He's not going to do it again."

"Oh? Did he promise?"

At Munakata's mock, Makoto straightened. "He lost the woman he loved and for a minute, his mind went with her." He stared up at Munakata, unblinking. "If he doesn't deserve a second chance, then what the hell are _we_ doing here?"

After that, he went back to his hotel and facetimed Kyoko. "Have you ever been to Paris?" he asked when she answered.

"When I was a kid, sure." She was cooking dinner - so she turned away from the camera a few times to check on the stove. "Why? Are they sending you to Europe?"

"No. I wanna go. With you."

"Makoto." He didn't know what it was that had given his mood away - he really had tried to sound (and look) happy - but Kyoko could tell instantly he wasn't okay. She leaned across the kitchen counter and picked up the camera, so she was talking directly to him. "You can come home if you want to. There are plenty of other ways to make the world a better place."

"I know." He tried not to dwell too much on her offer, for fear of taking her up on it. "Is Koichi there?"

"I'll go get him in a minute." Kyoko narrowed her eyes. "He asked me if you were staying with my grandfather too."

"Ha, as if." Makoto realised Kyoko wasn't smiling; it wasn't a joke. "Why would he think that?"

"He thinks that's what happens when he has an 'accident'," she explained delicately.

Makoto couldn't recall exactly when Koichi had first wet the bed, but it was definitely possible it coincided with the miscarriage and Kyoko leaving and it definitely happened again a few weeks ago. Of course there was no correlation - but to a small little boy for whom a few days away from either parent felt like an eternity, like a punishment, it made perfect sense.

What had Fuhito told them? _If you're not careful, he'll begin to draw his own conclusions._

"Yeah," Kyoko said, soberly, noting his shock. "I tried to reassure him but - well, you're better at all of that than me. Have a word, will you?"

He nodded. "You got it."

She disappeared for a few seconds, before returning with their son in tow. Only Koichi's hair and forehead could be seen from where the phone sat on the kitchen counter, so Kyoko handed it to him. They chatted idly for a few minutes - Koichi, recanting the story of his day at school with great embellishment - before Makoto eased into the topic of his being gone.

"Hey, buddy, you know why I'm not home right now, don't you?"

Koichi pouted. "You have to work."

"Right. And that isn't your fault - it's nothing to do with anything you've done or didn't do. You're the best kid there is." Makoto wished he could reach out and ruffle his son's hair, but he had to settle to touching his finger to the screen of his phone. "Me and mom, we love you more than anything."

"I know." Koichi gave a small shrug. "Yumi told me it wasn't my fault, but I didn't believe her."

"Yumi?"

"Oh," Koichi said, brightly, "Yumi's my friend. But she's secret."

"Secret?"

" _Imaginary_ ," Kyoko corrected, pointedly, from the other side of the kitchen.

"She's real!" Koichi protested, frowning. " _You_ just can't ever see her."

Makoto stayed on the call while they ate dinner, which seemed to brighten Koichi up, as he derived endless entertainment from trying to feed him a forkful of his spaghetti through the screen. When they eventually hung up, Koichi was offering to help his mother with the dishes in exchange for a game of hide and seek in the garden and so it seemed order was restored.

The next day, Munakata approached Makoto at his assigned desk. He handed him the release paperwork for Kaiya's husband, along with a psychological evaluation marked 'CLEAR.'

"It's handled. He'll have to pay a fine and there will be restrictions on his ability to purchase firearms but aside from that, he's escaped this whole debacle relatively unscathed." Munakata stared hard at him. "He has you to thank for that."

Makoto didn't think having to bury your wife and being driven insane with grief really constituted escaping 'unscathed' but he knew Munakata was trying, so he let it go. "Thanks, I uh, appreciate the update."

"You breached protocol by talking to him, you know." Munakata sighed. "There is talk I'm letting you run riot. I mean this respectfully, Naegi, but you are a guest here and as such, you need to abide by the rules you are given."

"You said you were open to suggestions. I'd like to make one, I think."

"Oh?" Munakata's mouth was a thin, straight line. "Go on."

"You should have trained counsellors to talk to the suspects you capture. A team of people who aren't judgemental, who believe in a positive future that includes everyone and who want to make a connection, even when it's difficult." Makoto looked up to meet Munakata's stare. "With all due respect, handing them over to the police doesn't seem to be very effective."

"You want me to dedicate time and resources to the training of a team for the purposes of what? Rehabilitation?" Munakata seemed uncertain. "And just where would I find these people like you?"

"They're everywhere." Makoto thought of Kaiya and her garden, where, even after her death, things were still growing. "And not just people like me. People like Chisa Yukizome."

At the mention of her name, Munakata stiffened. "Idealistic people tend to be the first to fall into despair."

"That's why I said a team." Makoto smiled. "So they can share the task and the experience. So they can help each other out and ground each other."

Munakata cut the conversation short then, citing a meeting, but Makoto suspected it was the reference to Yukizome that did it. It was the end of the week before Munakata brought it up again.

"Well, such a task force would require a leader." Munakata looked at him, very carefully. "It would be a permanent position. We offer excellent healthcare benefits and an impressive pension scheme." Munakata gave the smallest hint of a smile then, so Makoto didn't know if the next part was a jab about Hope's Peak or a thoughtful reference to the fact he was a father now, "there are some excellent schools in the area."

"I - um, thank you, Munakata. It's really nice of you to offer, but, you know, I have responsibilities back home."

"Discuss it with your wife," Munakata suggested, tightly. "I'm sure she's solved all the mysteries Tokyo has to offer by now."

He wasn't wrong. Kyoko, who had spent most of her own childhood travelling, made no secret of the fact she didn't want to confine Koichi's life to central Japan. It was why she made a point of introducing other languages at home; why she'd been hesitant about buying a house instead of renting. Makoto knew that if it weren't for Hope's Peak and her aging grandfather, they would have been raising their son somewhere else entirely.

Munakata excused himself after this, but an hour or two later, he sent for Makoto to come to his office. Makoto wasn't expecting to find Munakata standing in front of a television screen, flashing with the images of a building engulfed in flames.

"Wha-" As he stepped closer, he realised he recognised the building. The pit of his stomach dropped. _Togami Corp._

He took out his phone, that he'd had on silent for the morning meetings. He had a missed call from Kyoko and two from Hina. Before he could call either of them back, Hina called again.

"Where _are_ you?" She half-screeched. "What the hell is going on?"

They hadn't spoken since he told her he was coming to the Future Foundation. Hina was more forgiving than Kyoko, so he didn't think Munakata had been the reason, more that she felt he was being a crappy headmaster, although in truth he hadn't felt too guilty about it - it wasn't like he was on vacation, and he'd left the school in Kane's very capable hands.

"I don't know. Have you spoken to Byakuya?"

There was a slight hesitation. " _No_? Why would I?"

"What?"

"What? Makoto, what am I supposed to tell my class? They're freaking out!"

"Hina," Makoto really didn't want to ask this, but it was dawning on him they were having two different conversations, "What's happening at the school?"

"That's your job to figure out! No one's told me anything since Kane raised the lockdown alarm."

Makoto swallowed hard. "Hina? Listen to me – don't panic. All you need to do is follow the usual safety procedure, okay?" He hung up, then looked helplessly at Munakata. "I need to go."

Just then, his phone vibrated again. A voicemail message of commands from Kyoko. _You're closer to Togami Corp - go there, see what you can find out. I'm on my way to the school._ There was a pause, and then she gave three concise commands in a tone so serious, it had the hair on the back of his neck rising up: _Don't panic. Don't talk to the press. Don't take the car Munakata offers._

"You're going down there?" Munakata asked. He crossed the room to his desk and picked up the phone on his desk. "I can have someone drive you."

"I'm fine," Makoto said, shaken by Kyoko's warning and the entire situation. "I gotta go."

In the end, he called a taxi. By the time it arrived - and, by the time they made it across town - he didn't stand a chance at getting anywhere near the building in question, which was still on fire.

He was whisked away quickly by a detective who recognised him as 'Kirigiri's husband', a rare, but not unwelcome occurrence, particularly as this guy seemed to know what he was doing. He was led to a ground floor office across the street, where he heard a familiar voice barking orders at a man dressed in a bullet-proof vest reading 'SECURITY.'

"You are an imbecile and altogether entirely worthless. Consider yourself fired."

"Byakuya!" Makoto couldn't help himself. He ran to his friend, around the burly man shuffling out

with his head hung low.

Byakuya narrowed his eyes. "Why on earth are _you_ here?"

"I'm so glad you're okay."

"As am I, I must admit." Byakuya adjusted his tie and sighed. "And you? I believe the official word on your end is a hoax?"

"When did you hear that?" As far as Makoto was aware, whatever was going on at the school hadn't been on the news.

"I received a...call a few moments ago." Byakuya eyed him up and down. "How _is_ it you got here so quickly?"

"Um. I'm doing some work in the area." When this answer didn't seem to suffice, Makoto gave in and elaborated. "With the Future Foundation."

"Ah, so you took their bait?" Byakuya made a noise of contempt. "I turned it down, myself."

"Munakata...wanted _you_?" The realisation that he hadn't been Munakata's first choice stung more than it should have.

"I shall try not to take your shock personally." Byakuya rolled his eyes. "He went as far as to offer me a job when I first moved to the area. I turned down his offer of course. It's all optics. Anyway. I don't suppose Kirigiri has any theories as to whether there is a connection between my building being blown up from the inside and Hope's Peak being targeted with an apparent bomb threat?"

He wouldn't hear anything from Kyoko until that evening. Makoto watched footage of himself arriving at the scene on the television in his hotel room, took in the headline along the bottom, FROM HOPE'S PEAK TO HOPELESS, and groaned.

"It's a PR nightmare, I know." Kyoko sighed over the phone. "Still, it could have been worse. Togami Corp was evacuated due to a routine drill fifteen minutes before the first explosion and the incident at Hope's Peak was a false alarm."

"Doesn't it seem like a crazy coincidence?" Makoto shut off the television. "Munakata asked Byakuya to come work for him months ago but he declined. Then, today, he offered me a job. That's suspicious, right?"

"He offered you a job?" Kyoko sounded intrigued. "What did you say?"

"Nothing. I didn't have time to think about it before - y'know, _everything_."

"Hm." Kyoko did not sound nearly as appalled by the thought as he expected. "Are you going to take it?"

"No! I mean, _right_?" Makoto asked, confused. "Didn't you just warn me not to get into a car with him?"

"I couldn't decipher a motive at that time and I wasn't prepared to risk your life to figure it out," Kyoko explained. "Since then, I've been able to determine that the student responsible for the threat was working alone. I'm waiting on the report on the incident at Togami Corp, but I expect it will cite an electrical fault."

"And we believe that?"

"There was CCTV evidence of the student in question delivering a package to your deputy this morning." As an afterthought, Kyoko added, "He's been expelled, effective immediately, although I imagine it won't be processed officially until you return."

He'd already received an email from Kane, detailing how Itoh Sotan was defiant even when faced with the evidence. _It is with regret that I had to dismiss him. I suspect it was the corruption of the former student Maida Yuji that insticated the event._

"I meant the 'electrical fault.'"

"Oh, of course not." Kyoko didn't say, 'duh, Makoto' but he knew it was implied. "It was Munakata. He wanted to scare you into staying put. He tried to manufacture despair in an effort to stress necessity of the Future Foundation. He wanted you to think your friend was in danger to spur you into being a hero and taking the job."

Makoto wasn't ready for the confidence Kyoko had in this assertion. It didn't leave him a lot of room to argue. "Does that mean he's been behind all of it?" He thought of all the attacks in recent months, all the bloodshed, all the death. He shivered.

"Unlikely. There's a big difference in this and what usually occupies the news."

It took Makoto and moment, but then - "There were no casualties."

He could hear the proud smile in her voice when she said, "Right."

"I need to talk to him." Makoto felt wounded. "How could he do this? I really thought he'd changed."

"Well, he has, in a way. I don't think he wanted anyone to actually die." Kyoko paused. "I expect the Future Foundation will even make a generous donation to Togami Corp in the coming weeks, to help with the rebuilding. In the name of restoring hope, of course."

Munakata, to his credit, didn't deny Makoto's accusations - although a small part of Makoto had hoped he would. He listened patiently to the speech Makoto had prepared, about how in his desire to make Juzo and Chisa's deaths mean something, he was losing sight of the man they had believed in, and then, when Makoto announced he was going home, Munakata stood up and held a folder out to him.

"Something I think you should see," he said, by way of explanation.

Makoto flipped the file open and frowned at the picture of that greeted him - was that... _Kane_?

"You've been stalking my staff?"

"Not stalking," Munakata corrected. "I had some concerns about his...interest in the Future Foundation on the night of the Hope's Peak anniversary party. I did a little digging in our records and found he used to live under a different identity. Did he tell you his partner was a leading member of the resistance against Hope? The man killed multiple members of this very organisation before he was shot in self defense by a task force Juzo was leading."

Makoto closed the folder. He could remember pretty well what Juzo's definition of self-defense was - both he and Kyoko had nursed the bruises for weeks after Tengan's game. "That's not true. His partner was killed in a hate crime."

"Yes, I imagine that's what it was to him - because as Future Foundation agents, we did 'hate' despair." Munakata frowned. "I assure you, Naegi, this information is accurate."

"And his child? Was she self-defense too?"

"I believe you already know the answer to that. She is your niece now, after all."

"Emi?" Five years ago on a mission with the Future Foundation, Komaru had come across an orphaned little girl, seemingly traumatised by the violence and despair she'd witnessed. When she was never claimed, Komaru took her home to live with her and Toko. These days, she was a well-adjusted ten-year old with the widest smile Makoto had ever seen and an impressive collection of both anime and novels.

"Yes. I doubt it is any coincidence that you find him working so closely with you." Munakata looked very serious, then. "I'm telling you this so you can protect your family accordingly."

"I'm sure," Kyoko scoffed, as Makoto relayed this to her as he waited downstairs in the lobby for his taxi to the airport. "He was so concerned he sat on the information for _how_ long?"

"Should I call Kane?"

"No. It's better to wait and confront him in work, you've always been better at reading people face-to-face. I'll talk to Emi about it, see if he's approached her."

"Thanks." Makoto shut his eyes, stress eased only by the certainty in Kyoko's voice. She hadn't even wanted him to come here, he thought with dejection, but still, she'd had his back every step of the way, fixed problems before he even knew they existed. In light of how much he seemed to have failed her in her grief, and how hard he'd shut down having another baby, he wasn't sure he deserved it. "I don't know what I'd do without you, you know."

"I'm aware," she said, sounding a little smug. It was enough to make him smile, if only for a moment. "I'll let you go. Wake me up when you get in."

As he hung up, he heard the sound of a soft mechanical hum. He looked up from his seat to see Monca Towa staring back at him.

"Uh, hi, Monaca."

"You're leaving?" she asked, peering at him curiously with her wide eyes.

He nodded. "Yeah. Family stuff. You know."

"Sure." There was a pause, and then she smiled. "You don't trust me, do you, Makoto Naegi?"

He thought about lying, but Monaca was a pretty intimidating lady despite her small size and the wheelchair and he knew she'd be able to tell. "I - I want to," he admitted.

"That's fair!" Monaca didn't seem too bothered by this. "I expect it. I did some crazy things when I was a kid. I wanted to be a mini Junko soooo bad before it got boring."

"Uh, yeah." That was a bit of an understatement in Makoto's book. "But hey, it was a long time ago. It was a different world then."

(He said this as if saying it would make it true. He thought of Koichi, of Emi; the children he loved for whom the world was still so brand new and full of promise. Their lives seemed so far-removed from the turmoil inflicted by the Warriors of Hope. He could only hope they would stay that way.)

"I can't believe I ever thought being Junko's lil sis would be a good idea. I mean, it wasn't that fun, you know?" Monaca tilted her head in thought. "I still wonder what happened to her though."

"Hm?"

"Junko's sister."

"Oh. Mukuro died, Monaca." Makoto thought that was common knowledge, but reasoned that maybe Monaca hadn't watched the televised game.

"Not Mukuro, silly! The _other_ one."

Makoto hadn't understood the expression of feeling your blood run cold until that moment. "The...other one?"

"Yeah. She was my age. That's why Junko took to me I think - because I reminded her of her baby sis." Monaca shrugged. "Guess she's living life under the radar. Probs for the best. Munakata would probably have her captured if she showed up! Hey, is that your taxi?"

He tried not to let what Monaca had said freak him out too much. So what if Junko and Mukuro had a sibling out there somewhere? She was just a kid when all the despair happened and she had probably spent the last decade trying to escape from it. It was a hell of a shadow to shake off, Makoto imagined. And all of that was only if Monaca could be trusted. For all he knew, she was plotting something herself, and was just using the threat of another Junko to freak him out. He made a mental note to tell Komaru to keep a closer eye on her next time she went to the Future Foundation - assuming there was a next time at all, after what Munakata had kept hidden.

By the time he got home, the house was silent and dark. Before going upstairs, he went to the kitchen for a glass of water. On the table was a banner Koichi had obviously been working on in preparation for his return. 'Welcome home Daddy' it read, in his crayoned scrawl. 'I missed you.'

He knew he shouldn't risk waking him, but he couldn't help it - glass of water be damned, he went straight to Koichi's bedroom and placed a kiss on his forehead, before fixing the blankets he'd kicked off in his sleep. "I missed you more," he whispered.

"I thought I heard you come in." At the sound of Kyoko's voice - quiet, so as not to stir their son - he turned. "Are you okay?"

He joined in her the hallway, easing Koichi's bedroom door shut behind him. "Do you think we can just - I dunno, wait, I guess, and talk about it tomorrow?"

Kyoko understood. She took his hand in hers and led him to their bedroom, before sitting him on the bed and framing his shoulders. He took in the sight of her in a black silk robe with plum trim. He tugged at the ties, curious, and sure enough, it opened to expose some very enticing lace underwear.

"I figured you wouldn't want to talk," Kyoko said, by way of explanation and then she climbed into his lap and for the first time in a while, his luck didn't seem like such an ironic joke.

The sex was great, but better was the way Kyoko threaded her legs through his afterwards and shifted down the bed to rest her head on his chest. When he cuddled her close, she hummed, content. The 'I told you so' never came.

"I know we're not talking about it," she said, as she linked their hands together, "but it's their loss, you know. You're brilliant and Munakata knows that."

"Would you have still loved me if my thing hadn't been hope?" Makoto questioned. It was one of the many questions that had plagued him during the flight home: who was he really, if he wasn't the person everyone expected him to be? Was it really enough if all he ever was again was a headmaster?

"I don't know." He couldn't see her face, but she sounded deep in thought. "I don't think you'd be you if that were the case. Why?"

"I guess I just don't feel so useful these days."

"But hope is what the world needed most. It's what I needed." Kyoko looked up at him. "It's what I still need, sometimes."

Kyoko was always saying things like that - that he'd taught her about hope and the right way to love someone, but sometimes, Makoto thought it was the other way around. The way he loved her was easy and full that it was enough to engulf his thoughts, but Kyoko's love was different - she was measured, she was rational. It was how she'd been able to put aside her own feelings of rejection to support him, the way he hadn't been able to when their roles were reversed.

After a moment, Makoto asked, "Did you give your grandfather back the money?"

Kyoko stilled and looked away again. "He's been away. I will when he gets back."

"You need to tell him what you really wanted it for," Makoto said. "You need to make sure that accepting it doesn't come with some weird conditions that are gonna shackle our kids to Kirigiri detectivehood indefinitely."

"Accepting it?"

He lifted their hands, locked together still. "We don't give up, remember?"

* * *

Confronting Kane proved to be relatively easy - the older man caved at the mention of his partner, and broke down in way that felt so raw, Makoto almost felt guilty for being a witness to it. Kane confessed that he was ashamed of his lover's evil, that he was afraid of telling Makoto the truth.

"At first, I didn't want to jeopardize the job," he said, turning away from Makoto to hide his pain. "And later, I did not want to jeopardize our friendship."

Makoto could believe that, but that didn't answer the question of Emi. Kyoko had questioned her about Kane under the guise of a case she was working on, both so Emi would take it seriously and to keep the details from her. She'd said she'd never met Kane and Kyoko believed she was telling the truth, although that had only left them more confused by Kane's targeting of him. What was the point if he wasn't even going to get to know her?

"And your daughter?" Makoto asked now.

"She's alive," Kane admitted. "I've known that for a long time. Where she is in the world I don't know, although I believe in my heart she's with good people. I know it's too late to be her father, but I hope that someday, I'll get a second chance with another child."

It was the best possible thing Kane could have said - that he hadn't been preying on Emi this whole time, that he wasn't seeking her out at all - but it left Makoto feeling worse, and not better. He got that to Kane, his daughter had been gone for a long time, but to say she was dead when she wasn't was something Makoto, as a father himself, couldn't quite shake off.

When he ran it past Kyoko, she shrugged and reminded him that being less sentimental than he was certainly wasn't a cause for suspicion. Komaru agreed, after questioning Makoto at length about Kane, and then she announced they weren't to tell Emi.

"You can't keep it from her!" Makoto protested.

"She's really young to have to relive all that despair stuff, Makoto," Komaru said. "And besides, they weren't her birth family. She only lived with those guys for a year or two as a baby. She's been with us longer than she was with them."

He thought his sister was being selfish - that she was keeping Emi from Kane because she was afraid of losing her. "She has a right to know she had a father once," Makoto fumed to Kyoko on the way home. He figured if anyone would agree with him about the shittiness of parental alienation, it would be her, whose father was basically banished from her life - even if she did seem to take her grandfather's side, even now.

"Maybe so," she said, "but it's not our right to make that decision." When Kyoko looked at him, there was a sternness in her eyes. "She's not your child. You're going to stand with your sister on this, not some stranger you just met - a stranger who, remember, is a proven liar."

He resented that, because even if he was a liar, Kane had been there for him a lot in the last year. He'd had his back in work; he'd been his shoulder to cry on after the miscarriage; he'd been the only one who encouraged him to go to the Future Foundation which, yes, in hindsight was not the best idea he'd ever had, but still. Kane had been a great support system to him, when his friends and family hadn't. Even if he didn't feel totally comfortable with the way he'd handled things, it still felt like he a betrayal to lie to him.

They were friends, after all.

Yet, each time Makoto planned to tell Kane, something would go wrong - once, the lightbulb overhead smashed and shattered all over the room; another time, they kept getting interrupted by phone calls and students requesting they sign their yearbooks. Eventually, when he lost his voice literally moments before Kane arrived in his office at his request, Makoto took the hint. His luck was telling him to keep quiet and somewhere along the way, his gut had come to agree.

Maybe Kyoko was right, he decided. He had enough to focus on with his own family, after all.


	4. Chapter 4

It was the first day of school again after the spring break - a break that hadn't been much of a break for Makoto at all, as he'd spent it buried in directoral paperwork in an attempt to find another deputy headmaster, this time temporarily, while Kane covered his position so he could take the next few months off. (What neither Kane nor any of the prospective candidates knew was that it had the possibility to become a permanent arrangement, which was why Makoto was being so picky.)

As he made his way down the hallway, he stopped dead in his tracks. There was a ghost outside of his office - an appariation of semesters past, the agitated presence of the first student in his eight years as principal that he'd failed to help. It was only the first day of term, and already Makoto was reminded of how haunted the place was.

" _Itoh_?"

"Mister Naegi!" When Itoh Sotan - who was _not_ a ghost, it turned out - looked to him, Makoto was instantly struck with how dark and puffy the skin under his eyes was. Itoh tugged at the sleeves of his shirt with a closed hand, as if he wanted to cover himself up entirely. He swallowed hard. "Mister Naegi – I-I need to talk to you."

"Is everything alright?" Makoto tried to think, quickly, of what could possibly have Itoh in such a state why he would choose to come to him with it, ten months after his expulsion. "Is it your grandmother?"

"I need to tell you something. I need – " Itoh's voice broke off. He dragged a hand across his face, anguished and exasperated. "Please sir, I need to talk to you."

"Sure thing. Let's do this in my office." Makoto encouraged Itoh into the room, and gustured for him to sit down as he took off his coat and abandoned his briefcase on the chair by the door. "Itoh, relax. It's gonna be okay. Just take a deep breath."

"I can't, I don't have time." By now, Itoh was speaking with such panic that his words were blurring together. _Drugs_? Makoto wondered. Was Itoh high? And, as an afterthought, did that mean he could be _dangerous_? He had pulled a bomb threat on this very school less than a year ago. "I'm so sorry, Mister Naegi. I should have told you earlier. I was scared – so scared. He told me he'd hurt her if I told you but now…now I think she's in danger anyway."

"Itoh, what are you talking ab-" before he could finish his sentence, he was cut off by his cell phone ringing. Usually, he would ignore it when with a student – especially one as visibly distressed as Itoh – but Kyoko was eight months pregnant, and as much as she and the doctors and the counsellor he'd taken to seeing told him to relax, he was on edge, still, because of last time. A quick glance at the caller ID should have relieved him, but it only raised more questions. "Um, sorry, Itoh. It's my son's school. I have to take this."

"Mister Naegi, no! There isn't time." By now, Itoh was almost crying. Makoto figured he probably ought to get the school guidance counsellor to join them, which made excusing himself with the promise to be right back seem like a much better idea. As he eased out of the room – to Itoh's protests, growing more defeated by the second – he almost bumped into Kane, who was standing outside.

"Did I just see Itoh Sotan?"

"Uh, yeah." Makoto shrugged. "I think he's going through something, I dunno." He looked to his secretary's desk: it was empty. Strange - it wasn't like Hazu to be late. "Hey, when Hazu comes in can you have her reschedule my 10 o' clock? I think this thing with Itoh is gonna take a while."

"Of course." Kane's hand on his shoulder didn't startle him, but it did feel a little out of place. "Anything for you, Naegi."

"Uh, thanks." He gestured to the phone in his hand as it began to ring again. "Sorry, I need to take this."

He turned his back on Kane to answer the phone. "Hello?"

"Hi - is this Makoto Naegi? Koichi's father?"

"Yeah." Makoto glanced at the watch on his wrist. He'd dropped Koichi to school only twenty minutes ago with no complaints besides being sleepy. For him to have taken sick - the only reason his school ever called - this quickly was sure to be a new record. Makoto himself had been pretty sickly as a child, always picking up colds and stomach bugs easily, so it was no surprise Koichi was the same. Still, it didn't make the thought of juggling a sick kid on top of everything else right now any less daunting. "Is he okay? Does he need picked up?"

"Um, he's fine. Actually, that's why we're calling: there's a lady here asking to take him out."

Kyoko had still been asleep when he left that morning and there had been no mention the previous night of keeping Koichi home from school. There was, however, a check up at the dentists scheduled for the end of the week, as per the calendar in the kitchen - Kyoko must have mixed up the days. He made a mental note to tease her about 'baby brain' later.

"It's fine - a miscommunication between me and his mom, I think. Sorry about that." Even though Kyoko was around a lot more lately, Makoto was still the one who did the majority of drop off and picks ups. It wouldn't be the first time a hesitant office intern had called him to cross-check before letting Kyoko take their son, particularly as the school required ID when an unfamiliar adult came to sign out a child: one of the cons of having given their son both of their surnames was that it wasn't uncommon for one to be left off internal paperwork. Usually, 'Naegi' was omitted, and so it was Komaru who encountered the most trouble but Makoto figured today, it had been the Kirigiri part.

"It's not…" The office clerk's voice lowered then, like she was careful not to be overheard. "It's not his mother. She says...she says she's his babysitter?"

Makoto frowned. "But we don't have a babysitter."

He heard a noise behind him, like something being lifted, but before he could place it, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head. Suddenly disorientated, he dropped the phone to the ground, barely able to comprehend _I've been hit with something_ before he fell to his knees and his vision began to fade.

* * *

He woke up with a start to the sound of something slamming.

"Mm?" he mumbled, the throbbing at the back of his head making him wince as he touched a hand instinctively to it. He cracked open an eye to a white ceiling.

"Good - you're awake." Was that… _Kyoko_? "You can help me look."

His wife's voice was enough to have him sitting up, blinking his way to consciousness and trying to take in his surroundings. They were alone in a room that looked _a lot_ like his dormitory in the original Hope's Peak. Kyoko was rifling through the drawer to his left, before slamming it shut.

"Am I – is this a dream?"

"No, and we don't have time to talk." Kyoko didn't look at him, too busy searching for...whatever.

He swung his legs over the bed, pain searing down the base of his neck and slowly, he began to remember. "I'm trying to figure out who's behind this. It must be an old case, something from when I was a teenager maybe. If it was recent, they'd still be in jail."

"Kyoko." Makoto felt sick. He looked down at her, at the curve of her stomach under her sweater, and felt sicker. _What had he gotten them into?_ "I think I have a hunch."

"I doubt that. Stop wasting time." He watched her cross the room to the desk and begin opening the drawers there too. She cast him an impatient look. "Makoto, come _on_. Check the bathroom for clues."

"This - I don't think it's because of you. I think… it's me." His head throbbed as he struggled to recall how he got here. He'd stepped out of his office to take a call. Had the door been in sight? Had Itoh snuck out? What had the call been about? Kyoko? No, he thought. _Worse._ He stood up, pain forgotten in place of panic. "They tried to take Koichi."

" _They_? Who is they?" Besides the urgency of her voice, Kyoko was doing an excellent job of staying calm. Makoto was grateful for this, because he really didn't trust himself to be level headed right now. His heart was racing, his stomach was in knots. "Makoto, what do you know?"

"What if they have him? What if they hurt him?" Makoto thought of the moment just a few weeks ago when he'd taken his eyes off Koichi for a moment in the store and looked back to find him gone. The two minutes he spent racing up and down the aisles before finding his son charming the lady giving out free samples of candy had been filled with a fear so intense it left him shaking long after he had scolded, and then hugged, his son. He didn't think it could get any worse than thinking your child was lost - but here he was, dizzy with the suffocating fear that his son had been _taken_. "Oh my God, Kyoko."

"Stop." Kyoko pushed him back so he was sitting on the bed again. "Tell me everything you remember."

"I don't - I don't know, but someone showed up to collect him from school. I got a call about it."

"Someone?" Kyoko prompted. "They didn't give a name?"

"No. Wait, they did say it was a woman. She said she was our babysitter."

"A _woman_?" Kyoko pressed. She thought for a moment, and then looked at him very seriously. "Are you sure that's what they said? Or a _girl_?"

"I...don't know. Why does that matter?" Makoto realised then. Something - no, some _one_ \- had triggered Itoh's spiralling behaviour in the first place. "Maida?"

"If Koichi is to be believed, she seems to have quite the fascination with him." Since the incident in the woods, Koichi hadn't mentioned seeing her again. He'd been enamoured instead with an imaginary friend, who visited his room sometimes and played with him when they weren't looking. It amused Makoto, but Koichi was always reluctant to talk too much about it, because he knew they didn't believe him.

"Her ex boyfriend showed up at my office before I lost consciousness - you remember the kid who got expelled? For the bomb hoax?" He waited for Kyoko to nod before continuing. "He was upset. He said he needed to tell me something."

"It could have been a trap to get you alone."

"Maybe." Makoto wasn't so sure. Something about the terror on Itoh's face had been so...sincere. "Even if it was them - they hate me so much because...why? Their parents died during the despair?" Makoto asked, helplessly. "How's that my fault? How's that's enough to stalk my family, kidnap my kid and create a creepy replica of my old Hope's Peak dorm before knocking me out and -"

"- _My_ old dorm room," Kyoko corrected, her hand resting on her chin. "There's a lock on the bathroom door. The sheets are pink. It's why I assumed I was the target." She bypassed Makoto to walk toward the room's exit. "Anyway. I think we have enough to work with for now. We should go look around."

He followed her, grabbing onto her wrist and turning her toward him. "No," Makoto said, firmly. "You stay here."

"You know I'm not going to do that. Stop wasting time."

"Kyoko, you shouldn't even _be_ here." His eyes fell once again to her stomach, to the baby balanced between them whose safety he'd taken up praying for. "Whatever problem they have with me, to involve my pregnant wife is a whole new kind of crazy and I'm not going to put you at risk."

"I wasn't knocked out like you were - they gassed me, a low dose, obviously, given how easily I woke up. If they were going to kill me, they would have done it already. It's more likely I'm leverage to get you to do what they want." She shook him off. "And pregnant or not, I'm still your best shot at getting out of here." With a sigh and a flicker of something sympathetic in her eyes, she gestured to the bolted lock on the door. "You can go first if it makes you feel better."

It didn't really - but he didn't think much about this situation was going to. As much as he wanted to protest further, he knew it was pointless to argue with her. He tried to take comfort in her deduction about the differences in how they were abducted. Whatever this was about, it seemed like Kyoko and the baby were not the ones they wanted to hurt.

He took the lead. The adjoining corridor was all concrete walls and floors - "industrial" as Kyoko murmured to herself - completely unlike Hope's Peak. However, there were three other doors on the wall beside theirs, and another directly across from the room they'd just slipped out of.

"Do you think - ?" he began, but before he could elaborate or Kyoko could respond, the doors began to creak open, as if on command. It was...sinister, to say the least. He backed up, closer to Kyoko.

"Naegi?" From the room across the hall, Byakuya stepped out. His clothes were dusty and his hair was rugged; the skin on his neck was an angry shade of red as if he'd been strangled. "Kirigiri? What on _earth_ \- "

"Dudes!" Hiro was next to appear, running to them from the room a few doors down. "Can you believe we seriously time travelled? I like, totally did not see this coming!"

"G-guys?" Hina was weak and half-limping as she came out of her room and moved closer to them, using the wall to steady herself. "What's going on?"

"That much is unclear," Byakuya said, eyeing her for a second before turning to Makoto and Kyoko. "Which one of you was able to unlock the doors?"

"Um?" Makoto blinked at his friend. "You mean, they didn't just open when you tried the handle?"

Hiro shook his head so frantically his braids bounced. "N'uh man. Some kind of black magic opened mine!"

Byakuya rolled his eyes. "I believe it was more likely an automatic sensor."

"H-how come we're back h-here?" Another voice said. Makoto looked toward the last door, having almost forgot about it, and sure enough, there was Toko, peering back at them nervously.

"Obviously this _isn't_ the school, you imbeciles."

"He's right - but some effort did go into recreating it." Of Toko, Kyoko asked, "Are you alone in your room?"

"Of course! I'm not some pervert." Toko blushed, furiously. "W-who else would be here?"

Kyoko didn't respond. Makoto wanted to ask, but he already knew she'd brush him off - he'd been through this kind of thing enough times to know it was too early to ask her to share her deductions.

"I imagine we were not dragged here to discourse in this hallway." Byakuya gestured to the corridor ahead. "Shall we?"

They all fell into step behind him. Makoto offered Hina his arm for support. "Did Itoh go after you when he was finished with me?" he asked.

" _Itoh_?" Hina shook her head. "No. It was...some guy I've never seen before."

Makoto looked to Kyoko, an attempt to gauge if this was relevant information. She kept her eyes locked ahead and said nothing.

Byakuya came to a halt when he reached a metal door. In black marker, and spoon and fork had been drawn on it, although they were a little smudged. It opened automatically as he moved closer, screeching against the floor and revealing to them a large warehouse space. In the centre of the room was a makeshift table composed of wooden crates and surrounded by fold up chairs. It looked nothing like it's counterpart from the old Hope's Peak, but the implication was clear - this was the dining hall.

" _Well_? Aren't you guys gonna come in?" The giggle that followed had goosebumps rising under Makoto's skin.

"Enoshima?" Byakuya hissed. "Don't tell me it's another AI."

"No." Makoto swallowed. "Her name is Maida. She's one of my students."

"Ya sure, Naegi bro? Cause I'm with Togami, she sure sounded a lot like - "

"I thought you guys were supposed to be _brave_!" Maida looked older than her supposed sixteen when she stepped into their line of view. Her blonde hair was slicked back in a high ponytail and she wore a dark turtleneck and army pants. "Aren't you gonna come in here and have some _fun_ with me?"

"Whoa - I do know her!" Hiro staggered backward. "She brought her dead bird to me for a reading."

"That's...not how I thought your talent worked." Makoto shrugged this off to glare at Maida. "Why are we here? Why are you doing this?"

"Take a seat, headmaster," she crooned, gesturing to the chairs. "Or I'll have my friend here make you." Out of the shadows came a large man, barrel-chested and dressed in white, his hands already fists by his side. Makoto couldn't place him at first but he was sure he'd seen him before, somewhere...but _where_?

"My security manager," Byakuya said, by way of explanation. He pushed his glasses up his face and scowled. "I hired a traitor, it seems."

"He's the one who attacked you?" Kyoko asked Hina, her voice low so their captors couldn't hear. At first, this question made Hina hesitate, but but after a few seconds, she nodded.

"Y-you said you were a fan of my forgotten novel!" Toko accused, pointing at the man. "I s-signed a copy for you!"

"The least plausible dupe of all," Byakuya scoffed. "As if they are not all equally forgettable."

"Deguchi?" Maida called, holding her hand out to the man. He passed her a gun after a moment of reluctance, its silver steel side glinting under the overhead lights. She tapped it against her palm, a threat. "I'm not going to ask you losers again."

They filed into the room. When they were all sitting, Byakuya crossed his legs and yawned. "This is dull. Let me guess, we are required to kill each other to leave?"

Even if it was an obvious rule - because it was always the rule, wasn't it? - it hadn't actually occurred to Makoto. Every other time they'd woken up in a situation like this, there had been casualties - he looked around the table at his best friends and felt an overwhelming sense of dread. _But I need_ all _of them._

"That kind of behaviour certainly reaps a reward!" Maida winked. "Still, you might think you know how this is going to work - but news flash! You don't. There are some serious changes since the last time you played a game like this. For instance, my colleague and I here will be functioning as your helpful Monokuma this time."

"I prefered the bear," Byakuya said, blankly.

Maida pressed the gun to Byakuya's temple with such lightening speed even he seemed surprised. "Wanna say that again, _pretty boy_?"

"You need to explain to us why we're here," Makoto said, quickly, in an effort to distract Maida. "I still don't get it."

"That's simple! I guess that much hasn't changed. You're here to _die_ , silly headmaster!"

"Um. Right. But, uh, _why_?"

"Revenge." Maida dropped the gun to her side again and shrugged. "I'm avenging the lives you

stole."

"Listen, Maida." Makoto sat forward. "I know your parents were victims of the despair. I'm sorry you had to grow up without them." He'd grieved the loss of his own parents a long time ago, but that didn't keep it from cutting him fresh again in moments when he least expected it - when he'd hear his sister's voice in the phone and be thrown for a second by how much she sounded like their mother; when Koichi has asked him, out of the blue, why they never spent Christmas with his mommy and daddy. He looked up at her, hoping she would identify with the pain in his eyes. "We understand, you know. A lot of us lost our parents - "

" - I don't care about those dummies." Maida rolled her eyes. "God. I'm not pathetic. Being orphaned is actually pretty cool. It makes everything you do seem complex and haunted. Sweet deal!"

Well, that was unexpected. Makoto frowned. "Then...who are you avenging?"

"You're so sloooow," she said, flipping her hair, and it was then, in that second before she said it, that Makoto saw it clearly. He didn't have to look at the others to know they saw it too: you'd have to be _blind_ not to. "I'm avenging my sisters," Maida said sweetly. "I'm avenging Junko and Mukuro."

After a beat of silence, the room erupted.

"Unlikely," Byakuya scoffed.

Hiro banged his fist against the table, yelling, "Hey, that Mukuro chick dying had nothin' to do with us!"

"Y-your sisters were disgusting just like y-you -"

"There's no way. We would have _known_!" Hina cut in above the noise. She looked to Makoto, her eyes wide and trusting. "Right?"

He didn't know what to say to that. In his mind's eye was Monaca Towa, her flippant mention of Junko's real little sister. _She was my age._

Maida wasn't a freshman - she'd just been posing as one. Was Maida even her real name?

"You okay, headmaster?" Maida teased. "You're looking a little pale."

"My son," Makoto said, sounding strangled, "What did you do with my son?"

"Relax. Your brat is fine." Maida shrugged. "I thought it'd be cute if he could join us - a real family affair! - but he pitched a fit about how he'd get in trouble with you guys if he came with me and his teachers were threatening to call security and well - I had places to be."

"How can we believe you?" It was the first time Kyoko had spoken since they'd come into the room. She sounded so neutral Makoto almost thought he'd misheard what she said next: "How do we know you haven't killed him?"

"Well, you don't. Guess you guys just gotta 'hope', huh? Haha."

"You're horrible!" Hina protested. "He's innocent in all of this. He's just a little kid."

Maida wandered over to where Hina was sitting, to Makoto's left. She tilted Hina's chin upward gently and then, with a sigh, whacked her on the side of the head with the barrel of the gun. Startled and hurt, Hina flinched off the chair and fell onto the floor, clutching the side of her face and whining in pain. " _That's_ for giving me detention when you caught me and Itoh screwing the gym store," Maida said, triumphantly. "Anyway. If I wanted to kill the kid, I'd have done it months ago. I had plenty of opportunities." She looked at Makoto and smiled. "That dinosaur he sleeps with is _adorable."_

Makoto felt panic lurch in his chest. Overwhelmed, he banged his fist against the table, ignoring Kyoko's kick to his ankle. _Don't react._ "What do you want?" he demanded. "I'll do whatever. Just...let everyone else go."

"Sorry, but I can't do that. You guys are a package deal. Boss's orders. Now, who should I get rid of first?" She juggled the gun in her hand and then paused, in pretend thought. She trained it on Hina, still wounded on the ground, and smiled. Just then, the pager clipped to her hip began to go off. "Oops. Speak of the devil." She handed the gun back to Deguchi and Makoto felt everyone around the table exhale. "Come on. Duty calls."

"Where are you _going_?"

"Don't worry headmaster, we'll be back soon! In the meantime, make yourselves at home." Makoto watched, defeated, as Maida and the man left, stepping over Hina's legs as they did so. As soon as they were gone, Makoto crouched beside his friend.

"Are you alright?"

"Y-yeah." She pulled her hand back from her face, blood on her fingers.

"The kitchen should be through there, right?" Makoto pointed to a door on the other side of the room. "I bet there's a first aid kit, or at least some ice. We'll get you fixed up in no time, don't worry."

At the sound of a chair leg screeching against the ground, he turned to see his wife already on her feet. "Where are you going?"

She met this question with a withering look and so Makoto, regrettably, already knew the answer. "To investigate, obviously."

"No way. That's not a good idea. It's not safe and - _Kyoko_!" He got up, but Kyoko had already slipped out of the room. He tried to go after her, but Byakuya - who, at some point during all of this, had come around to their side of the table - stepped in front of him.

"Let her go, Naegi."

"I can't! She's _pregnant_."

"Yes, I think we can trust she is quite aware of that herself." Byakuya fixed him with a stern look. "But in addition to being the mother of your children, she is also a excellent detective. Our enemies likely assume your protectiveness will keep you from utilising her. It would be foolish to play into their hands."

"I can't just -" Makoto let out a frustrated sigh. He knew Byakuya was right. "Fine, but I'm going after her."

"You're needed here." Byakuya looked, pointedly, to an injured Hina; to Toko, who was shivering and mumbling nonsensically; to Hiro, who had his eyes shut and was clicking his fingers frantically, as if he could transport himself somewhere else. "I'll go. I have my own investigating to do anyway."

At the sound of Hina wincing in pain, Makoto relented. After Byakuya left, he scoured the kitchen. There wasn't a whole lot of anything - enough food and bottled water to do them a few days at most. There wasn't a first aid kit or ice or even hot water to properly clean Hina's head wound, but there were some frozen peas and few worn kitchen towels. He did the best he could, apologising frequently for the certain-sting, but Hina was a trooper and after a few bites of a donut he found in the kitchen, she was back to her usual self, if a little shaken up.

"The dead bird tried to tell me that girl was crazy," Hiro said, coming to sit cross-legged beside Makoto and Hina on the floor. "I shoulda listened, man."

"Mast - ahem, _Togami_ was right. I should have known better than to think that guy was a fan of my forgotten novel," Toko huffed.

"He's just a jerk, Toko," Hina said kindly as she licked icing sugar from her fingers. "I'm sure lots of people like it."

"It wasn't popular because it was about two g-girls who m-meet and... fight robots together." Toko seethed. "Het still sells better."

Hina raised an eyebrow at Makoto and he knew what she was thinking. _Sounds autobiographical._ "Ah."

"They s-save the w-world from the robots and then they...have a lot of...steamy sex - "

"- Oookay, Toko," Makoto interrupted, not needing this much detail when he was very aware her inspiration was her escapades with his little sister. "We got it. Thanks."

"Yeah, no spoilers!" Hiro insisted.

"Hey guys?" Hina was looking up at the ceiling when Makoto turned back to her. "Do you notice something different this time?"

"Yeah, didn't Brogami tell us this isn't Hope's Peak?"

"It's definitely not," Makoto assured Hiro. "It's just supposed to remind us of the first game. It's probably just to mess with us."

"Right. But - " Hina looked around, frowning. "Where are the cameras?"

She made a good point. There were no surveillance cameras in the rooms corners. Had there been some in the dorms? Makoto couldn't remember.

"You're right. And doesn't it seem a lot less...I dunno, elaborate?"

Hina nodded. "For sure. It's like they only half-cared. I mean, they didn't even bother with a proper Monokuma."

"Exactly!" Makoto forced himself to smile. "This is good, guys. It means we're dealing with a lesser threat."

This newfound hope was extinguished upon the return of Byakuya and Kyoko. When Makoto explained their finding, the two exchanged a look he didn't understand and then Kyoko sighed. "While the lack of cameras _is_ a worthwhile observation, it would be naive to assume it works in our favour."

"Why not? I mean, come _on_ , this is completely unlike the other games!"

"I agree, and while I'm not sure why there hasn't been the same amount of theatrics, I don't think we can necessarily equate it to a lower risk of danger." Kyoko sat down on one of the chairs, looking a little apprehensive about what she was going to say next. "And another thing - I'm not convinced that this is a game at all."

"What do you mean?" Makoto wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer, but everyone else was being a little too quiet, so he knew he didn't have a choice but to ask.

"We found what we think is a door to the outside," Byakuya explained. "The lock is configured on the _outside_. Besides that door and the one leading to the room where our captors are conferring, there's nothing else here."

"Nothing?" Makoto echoed, looking from his friend to his wife and back again. "Are you sure?"

"We combed back through the dormitories, but we didn't find anything of note." Kyoko paused. "Except - well, it's as I thought, the door of the room we woke up in triggered the opening of the others. No one else was intended to leave before us." Kyoko tilted her head. "From that, I think we can deduce this was supposed to start with you walking into that corridor."

"Me?" Makoto shook his head. "But it was the door to _your_ room."

"Yes, that is something I keep coming back to myself. Why were put in the same room? Why don't you have a room of your own?"

"Maybe they just miscounted how many rooms they needed," Hina said, shrugging. "Maida's homeroom teacher was always complaining about how disorganised she is."

"The number of rooms had to be deliberate," Kyoko insisted, "their order is exactly the same as it was the first time, so I doubt they just forgot to add one, _especially_ Makoto's. And even if it was an oversight, that doesn't account for why _we_ would be put in the same room, when we weren't the ones kidnapped together."

"Idiots! It's p-probably because you're _married_." Toko gestured to Kyoko's stomach and turned to the others. "They obviously do d-dirty things."

" _Toko_ ," Hina chided, sounding disappointed. "Come _on_ , you were super sex positive, like, twenty minutes ago."

"What do you mean, 'the ones' kidnapped together?" Makoto asked, halting the conversation. "Do you mean Hina and me? Because we were both attacked at the school?"

Kyoko went quiet. Behind him, Hina fidgeted. Byakuya cleared his throat.

"I wasn't...attacked at the school," Hina mumbled. When Makoto turned to her, her head was ducked, and she was pretending to be preoccupied adjusting the frozen peas on her ankle. "I was...somewhere else when I got taken."

"Somewhere else? _Where_?"

"An apartment in the city." Her cheeks flushed. " _Byakuya's_ apartment."

"What were you doing the -" Makoto looked between them, at the way they were both looking everywhere but at him or at each other. "Wait, _what_?"

"Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking either," Hina said, darkly. "It was a waste of time."

Byakuya snorted. "Well, it's not like you were _invited_."

Makoto whirled around to Kyoko. "You knew about this?"

She nodded. "I suspected it when they came out of their rooms. They were both surprised to see us, but not each other, and they seemed to have been in an altercation with their attacker before being knocked out, which would only be possible if, given the strength of the security guard, they had been able to outnumber him." Kyoko looked past him to Hina. "Prior to that, I was under the impression it was over."

"It is," Hina insisted, frowning. "Last night was just...a stupid lapse in judgement, okay? Now can we stop talking about it?"

"I assure you, I would like nothing more than to forget the whole thing myself." Byakuya folded his arms. "Surely we have more important things to be discussing?"

"I mean, I guess," Makoto conceded. "But we're not done with this topic. I don't even know how I didn't _know_ -"

Just then, the door to the hallway opened, and in came Maida and Deguchi again. There was a ticking noise coming from their pagers.

"Where the fuck is it?" Deguchi demanded. "Where is my gun? Which one of you bastards -" his eyes fell on Kyoko. " _You_. I saw you poking around." He attempted to lunge at her, and in that moment Hiro yelled, Toko shrieked and Hina cried out Kyoko's name, but Makoto couldn't think, couldn't speak - instinctively, he threw himself between them. Still - he would have been a second too late if Maida hadn't kicked the man to the ground first. Kyoko blinked down at her almost attacker, unfazed, but Makoto yanked her to her feet anyway, so he could stand in front of her and put more distance between them.

They watched as Maida wrestled against Deguchi, kicking at him still and throwing what seemed to be all her weight into dragging him to the furthest corner of the room. In only a matter of seconds, the ticking stopped, and Maida drew back. Makoto heard the man gasp once, before they heard a single 'pop' noise, and an explosion of blood and flesh came.

It took Makoto a beat to realise what had just happened. He swallowed hard. "Is he -"

"Oh my God." Hina covered her mouth. "That _smell_."

"Nnngh!" A thud indicated Toko had fainted.

"Hm," Byakuya said, quietly. "Interesting."

"Very," Kyoko acknowledged.

The one half of their Monokuma that remained alive and in tact, Maida, struggled to her feet. She wiped the blood of her colleague off her face and sighed. "Well. Oops. That's what you get for not following your order." She looked over at them and smirked. "Oh. So pretty boy is the gun thief, huh?"

Makoto followed her eye and sure enough, Byakuya was holding the gun. "Where did you get that?" Makoto hissed.

"It was located during our investigation," he said simply. "We couldn't have predicted it would cause his death, of course, although given the fact he was about to attack a pregnant woman, I personally won't be losing too much sleep about that fact."

"Why didn't you just give it to him?" He turned to Kyoko. "He could have hurt you."

Kyoko frowned. "I was testing a theory."

Byakuya's hand on Makoto's shoulder wasn't a comfort as much it was an attempt to steady him. "We already discussed the possibility of that very scene occuring - it was quite predictable, really. I would have pulled the trigger before it got that far."

"You left it pretty close," Makoto pointed out, shrugging Byakuya off. He glared at Kyoko. " _Quit_ it." He knew she wouldn't take kindly to him scolding her, but he didn't much care in that moment. It wasn't the time or the place to show off how smart she was.

"Sucker!" Maida teased, coming to stand in front of them. "I'm wearing a full bodysuit of bulletproof under these clothes." She lifted up her turtleneck to expose a thick layer of black velcro across her stomach. "So. Let's not be lame! That gun is how _you_ guys die, not me."

"There's always your head." Byakuya drew the gun so it was pointed at her.

"Um. _Byakuya_?" Makoto whispered, previous anger forgotten in place of the much fresher feeling of horror-tinged confusion. "You're not actually going to…"

It wasn't like they could just wound her and then extract information from her, or that her being injured would allow them to escape - if Byakuya pulled the trigger, it was a clear shot: Maida would die, instantly. Makoto knew Byakuya was a ruthless guy, but this wasn't taking someone's room keys and leaving them to fend for themselves against a mastermind; it wasn't sitting on a gun to prove a theory, even if it cost a stranger his life - it would just be straight up murder.

"Of course he's not," Maida sniggered. "He doesn't have the manhood for that."

"If you do that, you could be taking away our means of escape." Obviously the prospect of this wasn't as distressing to Kyoko as it was to Makoto, as it didn't deter her from edging around the scene to begin her investigation of Deguchi's body. Over her shoulder, she gave Byakuya one last warning before turning her attention away completely, "Think carefully. If this is a decision based on emotion, you need to give Makoto the gun."

A bead of sweat broke on Byakuya's forehead, but only Makoto was standing close enough to spot it. _Don't do it,_ he pleaded silently with his friend, _don't, Byakuya. I'll find another way._

"I can't take this guys," Hiro cried, burying his face in his arm. "Too intense."

"I can't take any more death," Hina said numbly, staring into space. Only this broke Byakuya's focus. He glanced at her on the ground and then, before Makoto could register what was happening, the gun was being thrust into his hands.

"Very _well_. I will refrain," Byakuya said, through gritted teeth. He turned his back to them all, simmering with disgust. "I hope you are all prepared to stand by your decision."

"Sweet, glad we got that over with." Maida dusted her palms together, nonchalant. Makoto wondered if she even cared if they killed her.

"Yo, Naegi." Hiro tugged on his sleeve and confessed, "I think I blew up that guy with my mind." He brought his fingers to his temples. "Like, whoa."

Makoto figured it was more likely that Hiro was just stoned, but he didn't have time to explain this to his friend before Kyoko interrupted with her own conclusion. "It looks like his pager was set to trigger an explosion when he was unable to locate his gun." She rose up from the body and looked back to him. "It would explain the barcode on the underside. It must require scanning after a certain period of time."

He turned the gun over in his hand and sure enough, there was a barcode. Makoto looked to Maida, who was now adjusting her ponytail. "Why aren't you trying to take this from me?"

"Why would I? Kill your friends if you want. They're all going to get shot eventually - who cares what order it happens in?"

"Makoto?" Kyoko called. "Can you turn him over for me?"

As Makoto moved closer, he saw there really wasn't much to turn over - the guy was in pieces. Hina, who had attempted to stagger over to help too, backed away, gagging.

"This isn't making you feel even a little nauseous?" Makoto asked, eyeing his wife with caution. As he touched his hands to what had once been a torso, the flesh came apart under his hands and he felt his own stomach retch.

When she was pregnant with Koichi, Kyoko complained frequently how the smell of blood made her sick, and how inconvenient that was given her job but now, she was completely unaffected. It made Makoto think about something Fuhito had said, when they first announced this pregnancy to him, before they'd known they were having a girl. Brimming with excitement and relief, off the back of an appointment with the midwife and a week past the point where they'd lost the last baby, Makoto had asked, _Do you want a great-granddaughter or another great-grandson?_ Fuhito met their smiles with a somber look. _I want a detective_ , he'd said, flatly.

(They never talked about it, but Makoto didn't miss the way Kyoko shut down after that and left him to do the rest of the talking. It was the first time he'd witnessed his wife want something other than the truth. All Fuhito had to say, having been privy to what the last loss had done to her, was that it didn't matter, that he'd love the baby no matter what. That he loved Kyoko that way, too.)

If Kyoko's ability to withstand the gore at their feet whilst heavily pregnant was anything to go by, maybe Fuhito had gotten lucky after all. Before he could say make the joke, Kyoko crouched down beside him. "I know you're frustrated," she said, low enough that the others couldn't hear, "but I need you to trust me - last time, I promise. I know what I'm doing."

Makoto realised then that she wasn't at all interested in the parts of the man he'd just turned over. She had beckoned him to her so she could give him a heads up for whatever the hell she was planning next. She put her hand on the gun he was still holding. _Trust me._ He met her eyes, saw the same determination staring back at him that he'd fallen in love with in the first place and, with an apprehensive sigh, he relinquished the gun to her.

Kyoko disappeared into the kitchen while the others were distracted by Toko (or, more accurately, Genocide Jill) moaning into consciousness. Maida followed her immediately. Makoto hung back for a moment, but quickly caved, equal parts worried and curious.

He didn't know what he expected Kyoko's plan to be, but it certainly wasn't holding a gun to her own chin. "Kyoko!" he demanded, but she ignored him and kept staring at Maida with blank eyes.

"You need to chill out, lady." Maida made an attempt to swipe the gun from her, but when Kyoko's hold tightened she froze. "Seriously. Quit with this drama. The damsel in distress shtick is so unnecessary. You got the guy last time!" Maida gestured to him.

"My son's dead," Kyoko said, quietly, and for a second, she sounded so convinced Makoto's breath caught in his throat. Did she know something he didn't? Surely she would have told him if she found something when she was investigating? _Stop,_ he scolded himself. _She warned you for this very reason - so you wouldn't freak out._

"I already _told_ you he's not!" Maida dug a phone out of her pocket. She keyed in a code into the keypad and brought up something on the screen. Makoto stepped deeper into the room to see.

It was some kind of greyscale security feed, but the picture was clear enough to make out the scene: Koichi, in the living room of Komaru's apartment. He was being read a story by Emi. Behind them, on the couch, Komaru was on the phone, probably trying to get a hold of one of them.

The anxiety Makoto hadn't even realised he'd been carrying dissipated at the sight of the messy haired boy laughing in his quasi-cousin's lap. Kyoko reached for the phone, but Maida snapped it out of her touch.

"How do we know that's live?"

"Take my word for it," Maida said, dryly. This time, when she went to snatch the gun away, Kyoko let her. "Now chill out and stop being such a hormonal wreck. Jeez."

When Maida stormed back to the others, Makoto took his wife's gloved hand in his and squeezed hard. Tears sprang to his eyes.

"Koichi's safe," he said.

Kyoko's touch was stiff under his. "Hm."

His heart sank. "You think - you think that was a lie? That it was pre-recorded?"

Kyoko took a second to process this question. Then, she shook her head. "No. No, I think it was live. I think Koichi's fine."

"Then...?"

"You know how it seems that guy's 'order' was that he had to have the gun on him or he'd die?"

Makoto nodded. "A forbidden action, except it's like the only thing he _had_ to do. An essential action, I guess."

"Right. Well, I think Maida's is something to do with me." Kyoko frowned. "That I can't get hurt, or that I can't be killed. Maybe both."

"Oh?" Makoto didn't know why that had her so shaken up. If anything, that made him feel immensely better. "Well, that's good then."

At the sound of Hina yelping in the other room, their conversation was cut short. Makoto ran into the dining room, expecting to find Maida beating on Hina with the gun again, stopping short of himself when he realised Maida was the one on the floor (laughing maniacally) and _Genocide Jill_ had the gun. Perhaps most shocking of all was that it was pressed to Byakuya's forehead, not Hina's.

"Makoto!" Hina cried. "Make her stop."

"H-hey now, there's no need for that." Makoto put his hand on Genocide Jill's arm. "We're friends, remember? Besides, it's Byakuya. You lo- _like_ Byakuya, remember?"

She shook him off so violently he lost his balance. "If I kill him, I get to leave."

"No. That's not how the game works this time." He turned to Maida. " _Right_?"

Maida was still laughing as she dusted herself off. "Yeah, you're not leaving. Sorry! But I can offer some footage from back home as an incentive." She glanced at Kyoko and Makoto. "Wouldn't want you to think I'm playing favourites."

When Genocide Jill turned to them she...wasn't Genocide Jill. "I can s-see Komaru?"

It was Toko. It had been Toko the whole time. Makoto remembered Komaru mentioned they were working on a treatment plan to help Toko better manage her split personality, so that even when triggered by blood or a sneeze she could find her way back to herself - he just didn't think it would be all that successful.

If he'd been shocked that Gencode Jill had pulled a gun on Byakuya, he was astounded that _Toko_ had.

"Toko, wait!" Makoto protested. "Listen to me - Komaru's fine. We just saw her on a live feed from Maida's phone. She's at home with the kids. She's safe."

"You're just s-saying that!"

"It's true," Kyoko agreed, when he turned to her for backup. "I thought something might have happened to her too. It's why I asked if you were alone in your room. I couldn't understand why she wouldn't be here too, if this was all about Makoto." Kyoko paused. "But - I have more information now and I think it's fairly likely she isn't in any danger."

"Fairly likely?" Byakuya hissed, whatever allyship the two had struck up earlier seeming to have expired. "My life is on the line and that's the best you can do?"

Makoto stepped forward. "Toko, I _promise_. Emi and Komaru are good. They're missing you, I bet, but that's why we gotta focus on getting out of here. You can't go home to them if you're in jail for killing someone."

With a cry of, well, _despair_ , Toko threw the gun across the room and ran out of the dining hall, tears rolling off her cheeks.

They shared a collective sigh. Maida smirked at him once more before she left the room - and the gun - behind. "You still think you're getting out of here, headmaster! When will you _learn_?"

"Guys?" Hina asked when they heard Maida's footsteps fade away. She pulled her knees to her chest, eyes wide. "There's no way she's telling the truth, right? There _has_ to be way out, doesn't there? I mean, there _always_ is."

"I dunno. I have major 'we-gonna-die-here' vibes," Hiro said, his head in his hands.

Gingerly, Makoto picked up the gun. In the last half hour, it had been pointed to three different heads - it felt a lot safer in his trouser pocket than it did laying on the floor, waiting for someone to use it as a bargaining tool again. He turned back to his friends.

"Listen, we're just low on energy. I saw some soup in the kitchen earlier. I bet we'll all feel a lot better after we eat something." Makoto looked at each of the defeated faces in turn. "Trust me, okay?"

He dragged Hiro along with him to the kitchen. Kyoko excused herself - for the bathroom, he presumed, or maybe just a walk to clear her head. This left Byakuya and Hina alone and although at first they seemed to favour silence, as Makoto unwrapped the plastic from the single loaf of bread he found, he could make out the soft buzz of conversation from the other room.

He left Hiro to dish out soup to the others while he took a serving, some bread and a bottled water to Toko. He knocked once on her door, announced he was leaving food for her and then left the tray on the ground. He was already walking away when he heard the door open.

"M-makoto?"

"Toko!" Her eyes were red from crying. "Hey. Come eat with us. I don't want you to be alone."

"I don't w-want you losers," she sniffed. "I want Komaru."

"I know you do." Makoto felt a pang of sympathy for Toko then. He knew how much it had to take for her to admit that - she was usually so...defensive about her feelings. He was also struck by how, in a weird kind of way, he'd gotten lucky. As much as he would have given anything for Kyoko to be safe at home, the fact they were together meant he didn't have to wonder if something terrible was happening to her, right that second; it meant that if something terrible did wind up happening to him here, he could say goodbye to the woman he loved. Toko didn't have that.

"Y-you better not tell her I said that. Ever! Or- or _else_."

"I won't, Toko," Makoto assured her, gently. He offered her a smile. "Just - make sure you eat something, okay? Komaru will kick my butt when we get out of here if she thinks I let you skip meals."

Toko didn't say anything else, but she did take the tray into the room with her. On his walk back, Makoto saw Kyoko waiting outside the dining hall for him.

"Is she alright?"

"She will be. She's just missing the girls," Makoto explained. His hand on her back, he asked her what she was thinking, almost afraid to hear her answer.

"I can't be sure - not yet, but doesn't it seem like this time, they're _committed_ to us dying here?"

"Junko was committed. Tengen was committed," Makoto reminded her. "We didn't let it happen then, and I'm not going to let it happen now. We're going to survive this."

"Right," Kyoko said. She returned his smile, but it didn't reach her eyes. Instead of the determination Makoto had seen shining back at him earlier, she looked...sad - like she was humouring him. She looked down at the swell of her stomach, and he watched her stroke the side of her thumb against it, as if she were communicating something to their daughter inside. After a moment, she looked back up at him. "We should go eat," she said, and although he followed her into the dining hall and forced himself to put on a fresh smile for their friends, he couldn't unsee the defeat on her face.

They spent dinner debating the identity of the mastermind, with Hina and Byakuya convinced Munakata had something to do with it, while Makoto felt it was obvious at this point that Itoh Sotan had been involved. Hiro didn't have much of an opinion, especially considering he was lacking his trusty crystal ball. Kyoko was quiet during the entire exchange, which wouldn't have seemed uncharacteristic were it not the one thing Makoto expected her to have a strong opinion on. Instead, she didn't even seem to be listening and she'd barely touched her food, despite Makoto giving her half of his portion as well when dishing it out, certain she'd be hungry by now.

He was not the only one who noted her lack of participation in the conversation. "Hello?" Byakuya snapped, waving a hand in front of her face. "We are attempting to solve a mystery here. This is supposed to be _your_ forte."

Makoto half expected her to recap their discussion and shoot down their attempts at theories just to prove she had been listening - but she...didn't. Kyoko blinked at Byakuya, as if she'd genuinely been somewhere else. "Hm?"

"Um, Kyoko, are you feeling okay?" Hina asked, frowning. "I mean - all this is stressful and you're like, super pregnant. The baby's okay, right?"

Kyoko stared at Hina for a beat before nodding. Makoto watched her rub the side of her stomach. "She's fine."

"She?" Byakuya raised an eyebrow. "I didn't realise you found out the sex this time. Or was it supposed to be a secret?"

"No secret," Hiro said, licking his spoon. "Naegi told me before I could even predict it!"

"Oh?" Byakuya was looking at Makoto now, his mouth a thin line. "Do I wager then that I am the last to know?"

"Uh, I didn't really think you'd... _care_ ," Makoto admitted, scratching his face awkwardly. It was such an un-Byakuya-like thing to take an interest in. "I mean, it's not like you're around a whole lot these days."

"Ah, yes. I forgot you require _constant_ attention and affirmation." With that, Byakuya stood. "I'm going to my room."

"Byakuya, wait." Byakuya, ignoring his protests, walked toward the door. Makoto followed him. "Are you seriously gonna be mad about that? And right now? I'm sorry, I never meant to hurt your feelings, but you don't have a lot of room to be righteous here - _you_ didn't tell me about you and Hina and that's a _way_ bigger deal!"

"There is no 'me and Hina'," Byakuya said, with a scowl. "And as to why it was kept from you - I urge you to consult _her_."

Without another word, he left. Makoto turned back to the others, who seemed content to pretend they hadn't been listening. Even with her head ducked, Makoto could tell Hina was blushing by the pink of her ears.

"I think I'll go lie down," Kyoko said. Hiro followed this with an excuse about needing to 'recharge' his abilities or something. Makoto let them go, knowing it was just an excuse to leave him and Hina to it.

"So?" he said, taking the seat next to her. "Are you going to tell me?"

Hina sank lower in her chair. "I was...ashamed."

Makoto winced. "I know Byakuya's a lot, but that's kinda harsh."

"Not of him." Hina pressed her forehead into the palm of her hand. "I guess I just felt...guilty about it."

"Guilty? Why? If it's because of Toko's thing for him, you're totally in the clear for that. She's been all about Komaru for years."

"Not Toko." Hina's bottom lip quivered. " _Sakura_."

"Oh." Suddenly, Makoto understood. He put a hand on his friend's shoulder, but he didn't know what to say.

"I know it's been years. I know she had a boyfriend back home or whatever. It's not like we were even - _you know_ , during the game. It's just - I can't explain it, but it's like I know that during that year at Hope's Peak, the year we can't remember, we were...something. We _had_ something." Hina tugged at the end of her ponytail with dejection. "I mean, don't you ever think about it - about what we can't remember? Who did we fight with? Who did we date? What if we were closer to the people who died than we were to each other?"

Of course he thought about it. Once, one night shortly after they got engaged, he raised it with Kyoko, wondering aloud if they had been a couple during the lost year. Kyoko had snorted and said, dryly, that he was probably dating Maizono. _Do you really believe that?_ He'd asked, a little bummed out. _Do you really think you were my second choice?_ He felt like shit for making her feel that way when all he'd ever tried to do was be open about his childish crush on Sayaka.

If Kyoko had had concerns before, his reaction then seemed to distill them. Without missing a beat, she'd rolled her eyes and put her head on his shoulder. _It's okay_ , she'd said, _I'm sure I would have found some way to lure you away. Like I'd have ever let you marry her._ The unknown that was that missing year didn't seem so frightening, or important, once he decided to believe that one way or another, he was always supposed to belong to Kyoko.

"The Sakura we knew during the game cared about you a lot, Hina. She wanted to protect you, above all else. We might never know what that one year looked like, but I don't think there's any doubt how much you mattered to her." Makoto gave Hina's shoulder a squeeze. "She taught us all a lot about honour, and love, and sacrifice." He thought of Byakuya - the same man who hadn't been able to wrap his mind about Sakura's care for Hina all those years ago, who today had held a gun to their captors head: the same gun Maida had used to hurt and threaten Hina with. Knowing what he knew now, Makoto didn't think it was a coincidence that Byakuya just happened to stumble across it while assisting Kyoko. "She wouldn't have wanted you to grieve forever. She would have wanted you to be happy, with someone who loves you. I don't know if that person is Byakuya, but I do know you shouldn't feel guilty about getting back out there."

"I don't know how to not feel like I'm betraying her," Hina conceded, her eyes filling with tears.

Makoto gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Don't you think you're betraying her by stopping yourself from living?"

When Hina was done crying, she wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her sports jacket. "You know how Byakuya quit so suddenly? He - I think he was starting to like me. Like, really like me and I wasn't ready for that." She looked up at Makoto with wide eyes. "It's why he feels so left out now, why he was hurt that you don't make so much of an effort with him anymore, or confide in him as much. It wasn't you that he left, Makoto. It was me."

Makoto nodded. It made sense - Byakuya was the proudest man he'd ever met. If he felt like he'd shown too much vulnerability to Hina only to be rejected, it made perfect sense why he hadn't been able to work alongside her and why he'd pushed Makoto away so hard in the aftermath. "I'll talk to him tomorrow, don't worry about it."

They walked back to the dormitories together. Outside Byakuya's door, Hina hesitated.

"Eh, I'd give it a minute." Makoto forced a smile. "He's stubborn, Hina. Let him cool off."

"Right." She nodded, but at her side, her hands were curled into determined firsts. "Thanks, Makoto. G'night."

Kyoko was lying down, but still awake when he came into the room. He sat down on the edge of the bed to take off his shoes.

"If us sharing a room is, like Toko said, a couple thing," Kyoko said, sounding thoughtful as she stared at the ceiling, "why isn't there a double bed?"

Makoto took that as a hint. "I can sleep on the floor if you want." He wasn't offended - if anything, he would probably rest easier knowing she was more comfortable. He didn't think he'd be sleeping much anyway.

Kyoko let out a frustrated sigh. "I don't care where you sleep." Still, she shifted over to make room for him, before grabbing one of his hands and placing it on the left side of her stomach. Instantly, Makoto felt the tell-tale poke of one of their daughter's limbs. "Just get her to relax first."

Usually, such a request came when Kyoko was tense - Makoto was never sure if their daughter was reacting to her mother's stress or if she was just as active all the time and it only bothered Kyoko when it was a distraction from whatever she was obsessing about.

Regardless, Makoto was happy to help. "On it." He placed a kiss to Kyoko's fringe before moving down the bed. He rolled up her jumper and pressed another kiss to the stretched skin underneath. "Hey honey. It's dad. You're probably pretty confused right now, huh? Yeah, well, me too." He smoothed his palm over a ripple of motion. "I don't really have a lot of answers. But I do know I love you and your mom and your brother a whole lot. And even if I don't know how yet, I know I'm gonna fix all of this before you get here."

Kyoko's hand in his hair made him lift his head. "Makoto...what if you can't?" As if on cue, Makoto felt another sharp movement under his touch. Kyoko winced. " _Ugh_. She's in rare form tonight."

Tenderly, Makoto rubbed at the spot where their daughter had kicked. "Maybe she's telling you to stop doubting me," he said.

* * *

Makoto wasn't sure who got less sleep that night. Without a clock, it was impossible to tell how many hours passed with them both tossing and turning. After he some time spent rubbing circles into the small of her back, Kyoko eventually drifted off - for what couldn't have been longer than thirty minutes, before she was jolted awake by a cramp in her leg.

Makoto felt sorry: sympathetic to the fact she was uncomfortable, but remorseful too, that because of him she had to be so uncomfortable _here_.

"I'll get you some water," he said, after she batted off his attempts at easing the spasm. "Be right back." He found Byakuya in the kitchen, rifling around for coffee.

"It appears we were not granted even a semblance of pleasure," he declared, having come up empty handed.

"Um, yeah, that sucks." Makoto grabbed a bottle of water and then paused in the doorway. "Hey, Byakuya? I'm sorry I wasn't there for you - with all the Hina stuff. I should have picked up on it."

"I hardly require _your_ support." Byakuya folded his arms. "And even if I had - which I definitely did not - your loyalties would have surely been divided."

"I guess." Makoto shrugged. "I can't help it. I love both of you guys."

Byakuya's cheeks darkened. He cleared his throat and turned away, embarrassed. "Yes, well, be that as it _may_ \- "

" - _So_ sorry to interrupt, gentlemen." Shocked, Makoto toward the very familiar voice and the bottle of water fell out his grasp. "And, apologies for the early hour." Yuugo Kane smiled, a smile that made the hair on the back of Makoto's neck stand up. "I'm a busy man, what with a school to run and all."

Earlier fluster forgotten, Byakuya stood up a little straighter and glared. "Ah. So I take it you are our mastermind? And just who the hell _are_ you?"

"I'm the replacement for you," Kane said, simply. He turned to Makoto then, still smiling. "Isn't that right, Naegi?"

"Why are you doing this?" Makoto asked, his brain still struggling to catch up. His _deputy_? Seriously? "Because you want Hope's Peak?"

In another few months, he may well have given him it anyway. Makoto had never been so horrified by his own poor decision making.

"That cursed school," Byakuya muttered, as behind them, the others began to file in, led by Maida. At the sight of Kane, Kyoko met Makoto's eyes, but he couldn't tell if she was surprised.

"Where even are we?" Makoto demanded. "What is this place?"

"Why, it's yours," Kane said, with mock-surprise. "You bought it, remember?"

"Uh?" He looked to his friends, who were looking expectantly at him. If they knew how much of a mortgage he was still struggling to pay off, they wouldn't have been so easily taken in at the thought of him buying some random old warehouse. " _No_?"

"Well, you certainly signed the paperwork - and, of course, the funds used can be traced back to the school's executive account."

Inwardly, Makoto groaned. The mysterious missing money that he'd assumed was his own ineptitude to juggle a budget had in fact, been squandered by his new deputy. He should have consulted with Byakuya, who knew the numbers better than anyone; he should have fought harder against cuts to the budget - but he hadn't, because he was hurt Byakuya had left him high and dry and that Hina didn't trust his authority.

"What, you have no money of your own?" Byakuya asked, with obvious scorn.

"Oh, but _I_ didn't do all of this," Kane insisted. "Naegi did - or at least, that's what the media will say. It was premeditated, this gathering together of old friends. An attempt for him to recreate the feeling of being a hero before shooting every one of you - execution style."

"No one's gonna believe Makoto did this," Hina argued. "That's crazy!"

"It is inconceivable to anyone who's met the man that he would be strong enough to overpower any one of us, nevermind us all," Byakuya added. He glanced at Makoto. "No offense."

"Um, none taken? I guess."

"Well yes. I imagine there'll be talk of a co-conspirator." Pointedly, Kane walked over to what was left of the body of the former security guard. "Of course, Naegi turned on him the first chance he got. _Typical_."

"Even if you could link it to me, there's no reason for me to hurt anyone here." Makoto shook his head. "Without a motive, this would never stick."

"Yes, that did occur to me. Luckily - _ha_ \- I'm sure your old enemy Munakata will vouch for how disillusioned you were with your own ideals on a recent visit. He'll tell the press he had to ask you to leave, because you were so angered by your lack of control of the world and it disturbed him."

"But that... didn't happen."

"The truth doesn't matter. He can't risk another stain on the reputation of his company - that's was any kind of association with you will become, by the way...a stain, ruining everything that once was so good, so pure." Kane snapped his fingers, like he'd just then thought of something. " _Speaking_ of pure things you've ruined - how could I forget your _son_! I feel bad for the boy. I mean, the despair he's bound to fall into when he's older because of the traumatic childhood he had. How you tortured him with dead animals for months before murdering his mother with your bare hands." At this, Kane turned to Kyoko, and put a hand over his heart. "You're the exception. I think strangulation is so much more... _personal_ than shooting, don't you?"

Kyoko remained unexpressive. "Oh, please. As if you'll be able to convince _anyone_ that Makoto would lay a finger on me."

"I wouldn't be so certain," Kane said, half-laughing in a manic kind of way that made Makoto really uneasy. "I've seen the notes his therapist took during their sessions - the man has a lot of unresolved anger toward you, you know, for the whole 'walking out on him in the wake of a dead baby' thing. Oh, and for forcing him to have another," Kane looked down at Kyoko's stomach, "when he didn't even _want_ it." Kyoko, to her credit, stared him out and eventually, he turned back to the others. "I didn't even have to make that part up!" he cackled.

"Why are you doing this?" Makoto demanded, a lump forming in the back of his throat. "Why are you so invested in ruining my life? I thought you were my friend."

"I don't think you deserve what you have acquired," Kane said, nonchalantly. "So I'm taking it from you. But don't worry - I'll raise your daughter like my own."

It was then that Makoto lost it. As he lashed out at Kane, he was only vaguely aware of Byakuya holding him back by the collar. "Naegi - _Makoto_. Stop."

"Tell me what you want," Makoto half-yelled, half-pleaded. "Just tell me what I can do to make you stop this and let them go. If it's my life - "

" - yeah, yeah, I know, you'd die for them, that's real sweet, but it's not what's gonna happen here. That's too easy." As if to illustrate his point, Kane yawned. "When all of them are dead, _then_ you can kill yourself. If you do do it before then, whatever, but it's not gonna stop the rest of them dying. Face it, Naegi, there's nothing you can do this time."

"No! I don't believe that! I'm not just gonna give up."

When Kane announced he had 'better things to do' and Maida retreated back to the room where she was staying with a bowl of cereal, Makoto repeated the sentiment to his friends.

"There's a way to stop all of this, I know there is!"

The silence he was met with was more than a little discouraging, but Makoto tried not to let it deter him. After all, it was _his_ job to be the one who inspired hope.

"Naegi-bro," Hiro said, scratching his head, "what'd ya do to make that guy hate you so much?"

"That's just it - I didn't do _anything_. He lost someone he loved who was on the side of despair. I thought - I thought he was different than that, he told me he'd always believed in hope. I guess…" Makoto looked away. "I dunno. I guess I was dumb to believe him. I let him close enough to ruin all of us." He thought of Itoh. He really _had_ been trying to confess, and Makoto had walked out on him. "I let him close enough to corrupt my students." Feeling terrible, Makoto ducked his head. "I'm sorry, guys. I trusted someone I shouldn't have and I put you all in danger."

"You shouldn't have even had to hire anyone else," Hina defended, her arms folded across her chest and her eyes wide and rimmed with tears, daring the others to argue. "We were all supposed to be in it together, remember that? Somehow it all fell back on me and Makoto."

"Yes, how wrong of the rest of us to want better for ourselves," Byakuya scoffed.

"You can want better and still honour your commitments!"

"Hina's right," Kyoko said, frowning. "I usually do thorough checks on new members of staff. This year I didn't. I was too..." she glanced at Makoto, fleetingly, "busy." More accurately, she was wrapped up with the IVF process and the cases she threw herself into so she wouldn't think about it.

"The usual police checks came back clear," Makoto reasoned.

Kyoko sighed, regretful nonetheless. "I'm better than the police."

To Makoto's surprise, it was Byakuya who took the lead. "Regardless, there's no sense blaming ourselves and each other. It cannot change our circumstance now. Let's focus our attention on putting together a plan."

With some back and forth, they came to the agreement that Hiro, Hina and Toko would distract Maida, somehow, to allow Kyoko, Makoto and Byakuya to get into the room she usually occupied. Before they parted ways, Byakuya made a remark about how weak the other team was.

"I feel like when we get out of here, we're gonna need to have a long talk about how you should go about woo-ing Hina," Makoto said. The three of them were waiting in the dormitory hallway, for Maida and the others to return to the dining hall so they would make a beeline for the other room. "I mean, I get you're trying to act like you don't care, but she probably wants a little more... _kindness_ , you know?"

"And since when are you the authority on relationships?" Byakuya cocked a brow. "If our captor is correct, yours isn't quite as perfect as you'd have it be perceived."

"Kane was twisting things. We've had a rough time is all. It's not how I feel." He looked to Kyoko, who for years, had known what he was thinking even before he did. There was no way she'd take a strangers word over his. "Right?"

As Maida and the others disappeared into the dining hall, Kyoko shook her head, irritated. "I don't care about that right now. Come on. Let's go."

"Well," Byakuya said, as Kyoko took off without waiting for them. "I can certainly see why you're confiding in a therapist and not your wife."

Makoto chose to ignore this and followed Kyoko. The room was another replica of the girls dormitory, although it looked considerably more lived in than the others, with half-eaten potato chips and a stack of dirty places on the desk. On the table by the bed, there was a book titled _The Diary of Despair: The Junko Enoshima letters._ Byakuya picked it up and made a noise of disgust. "I thought this drivel was banned years ago. How this baseless conjecture was even cleared for publication is beyond me."

It was one of the many biographical accounts of Junko's life and reign written by someone who'd never had the terror of meeting her. Some were factual, recounting her early years in obsessive detail in an effort to determine where it had all gone wrong; some were more of a work of fiction, embellished heavily to paint her in a certain light. He could still recall the debate they'd all had about which ones to prohibit from the school library catalogue. _Isn't that kind of...censorship?_ Makoto had questioned, but he was quickly outvoted by the others, who insisted having them available would only give the students ideas. In the end, he'd rationalised it to himself as a way to protect the kids.

Now, Makoto felt like a idiot for letting himself be convinced that it could be that easy.

"What are we even looking for?" he asked, turning toward Kyoko.

She was rummaging through a backpack - the same backpack Maida had lugged around school or, more often than not, had Itoh lug around for her. Where was Itoh now? Makoto wondered. Had Kane killed him?

"This." From Maida's makeup bag, Kyoko pulled out a key. She pointed to the locked closet against the wall and Byakuya nodded knowingly. "We noticed it when we snuck in to steal the gun."

As she twisted the key in the lock, Makoto looked between Byakuya and Kyoko. "Uh, guys? What are we expecting to find?"

Neither of them responded. He got the impression Byakuya might have been as unsure as he was, but Kyoko's hands went straight to a box on the bottom shelf, bypassing the collection of other banned books about Junko. She lifted the lid, revealing a stash of supplies. A folded plastic sheet; surgical scissors and gloves; a roll of thick string. She unpacked each thing without pause, until it came to the final item - a small white sleepsuit with a monokuma printed on the stomach. She looked up at him.

The thought of Kyoko giving birth to their baby in a place like this made Makoto shudder. "Jeez. How long do they plan on keeping us here?"

Byakuya set about repacking the box, presumably so Maida wouldn't know they had seen its contents. Makoto almost wished they hadn't. "Perhaps it's just a precaution."

"We were wrong," Kyoko said quietly. "They don't want you, Makoto. They want the baby."

Of course. It was why Maida couldn't let Kyoko get hurt. It was why Kane had said Kyoko's death would be different than the others - they were accounting for the fact she would fight them when they took the baby. It was why, he realised, Kane had been so stricken by their miscarriage, so curious about their plans to try again, so elated for them when they announced they were having a girl. It was even why he hadn't pursued his own daughter: _Someday, I'll get a second chance to be a father._

Byakuya was returning the key to where Kyoko had found it when they heard yelling from the hallway. Makoto, who really didn't think things could get any worse, stared at the door for a long moment before opening it.

Hiro and Hina were hauling an unconscious Maida down the hallway, Toko following behind with her scissors pointed and ready to strike. Maida's hands were tied together, as were her feet, bound with wire. As Hiro pushed past them to dump Maida onto the floor of her room, Makoto blinked at his friends. " _Um_?"

Hina put her hands on her hips, her ponytail bouncing as she shrugged her shoulders. "So much for the weaker team, huh?"

Byakuya cast her a sidelong glance and smirked. "I stand corrected."

"How did you guys knock her out?" Makoto couldn't see any obvious wounds or bleeding.

"I tackled her," Hina explained, proudly. "I haven't used martial arts in a while - I thought I wouldn't be able to remember what Sakura taught me, but guess when it counted, it all came back."

"And the wire?" Kyoko, like Byakuya, sounded impressed.

"She had it on her." Hina turned to him, then. "You know, cause she's the the ultimate poacher - or she would be if ultimates were still a thing."

This was new information to Makoto. He'd made a point of turning the focus away from talents, wanting everyone to seen as equally valuable and important. Now, he wondered if that had really been for the students benefit, or if it was because of his own insecurity. It seemed more ignorant than altruistic, in hindsight.

"Well, that explains the dead animals. She was snaring them." Kyoko looked around at them, her arms folded over the swell of her stomach. "Now what?"

"Eh, we were kinda hoping you guys woulda figured that out." Hiro seemed alarmed to have been put on the spot. "You're supposed to be the thinkers! We handled the physical stuff."

"When she wakes up, I wanna talk to her," Makoto decided. This was met, predictably, with a fair bit of opposition - mostly from Byakuya, who was certain Makoto was the most susceptible to manipulation and that the very fact they were in this situation was compelling evidence of that - but he stood his ground. "Go back to your rooms, or go eat something. I've got this."

Eventually, they relented. Before she left the room, Kyoko offered to go get the gun for him - he'd stashed it under their mattress for safekeeping, although he had hoped it would be a secret from her too. No such luck when you married a detective, he figured.

"I don't need the gun." When she didn't seem to take this as an answer, he frowned. "Kyoko, I'm not going to threaten her. She's just a kid who got wrapped up in this."

" _Our_ kids are wrapped up in this." Kyoko lifted her chin a fraction. "As such, I'm not above violence right now."

"Well, I am." He stepped closer to her. "I know you're scared. I am too. But all of this - it's because Kane wants people to think I'm a monster, because if I can be corrupted by despair, then what kind of message does that send about hope? I'm not going to fall into that trap!" He put his hand on Kyoko's shoulder. "I swear to you, I'll do anything to protect our children - but I'm also not going to let fear turn me into someone they're not gonna proud of."

The look Kyoko gave him was a weary one, but as Maida began to stir, she left him to it all the same. His first action was to loosen the wire around Maida's wrists: as it was, it was leaving an angry indent against her skin.

"Wh-uh?" Maida tried to shake him off, before realising what he was doing and stilling. Next, he offered her some water which she declined, eying him suspiciously."Why are you helping me? I'm the bad guy, dummy."

 _The bad guy._ It made him think of Koichi, who had tried so fiercely to warn them they were being watched, only to be brushed off. Makoto made the mental promise to buy Koichi all the ice cream he could eat when they got home as both an apology and a reward.

"I don't think you're a bad person," Makoto said, simply. He sat down on the ground beside Maida. "You could have brought my son here if you really wanted, but you didn't."

"Cause he's super annoying." Maida shifted away from him, so she was sitting on her sleeping bag. "He talks too much. Once he stopped being scared of me, I couldn't get him to shut up. He would have gotten in the way. It's not cause I like, _care_ about him or anything."

"I just meant...well, I guess that I owe you for that." He looked up at her, sincere. "Thank you."

She shrugged. "Whatever. He amuses me. He's got a lot of... _spunk_! The first time he caught me in his room after the dead fox, he gave me a lecture about how I should be nicer to animals. The _audacity_. What does he expect from a villian?"

Makoto did not think it would be too helpful to point out that after that, Maida had in fact stopped killing animals. He was starting to suspect Maida had been Koichi's 'imaginary' friend the whole time. "Uh, yeah. That sounds like Koichi."

"Maybe I just have a lot of sympathy for the forgotten sibling." Maida yawned. "Mukuro wasn't much, but Junko's a hard act to follow and it sounds like Kane wants your girl to really be something else. He calls her his 'despair daughter.'"

Makoto tried not to dwell on how creepy that was, on how protectiveness flared inside him. "What I don't understand," he said instead, "is why Kane wants my daughter when he could have you. I mean, you're a blood relative of Junko's."

Maida laughed. "Right. You'd think I'd be the perfect poster child for despair, huh? But the world knows Junko was crazy. They wouldn't fall for it again." What they would fall for, Maida explained, was a girl with the same 'puppy dog eyes' as the Ultimate Hope. "Think how worshipped she'll be, that even in the height of your madness, you couldn't kill her. The people who hate you will call her a survivor; the people who loved you will say she's the hope you left the world."

It was a pretty chilling plan. Maida even admitted that Kane had links to the terrorist groups wrecking havoc across the world. She spoke about it as an outsider though, which made Makoto wonder why she was involved.

If the door really did only open from the outside, then she was as much at Kane's mercy as they were. Not to mention that at any time, they could kill her themselves, or something could happen to Kyoko which would in turn seemingly mean she would die too. It didn't seem like the kind of lot a co-conspirator wound up with. Had Kane tricked her?

After some pressing, Maida told him that Deguchi had been in love with Kane, which explained his involvement. When asked what was in it for her, Maida replied, "Knowledge. _Duh_."

"Knowledge?" Makoto blinked. "Of what?"

Maida nodded toward the book on the floor. "Of my sister. I want to know what she was thinking and since I can't ask her thanks to _you_ , this is the only way I can understand her."

Makoto looked around then, able to see the room more clearly. It wasn't Maida's dormitory - it was _Junko's_. It wasn't the first game she was trying to recreate, but the year at Hope's Peak when her sister descended into madness.

"I don't think you're going to, Maida," he admitted.

He had seen Maida make a flower crown for Itoh on the front lawn of the school one day last spring; he'd watched her cheer for the boy at his track meets. He knew now that she'd reassured Koichi about his bedwetting, that she'd spared him when she could have dragged him into this. Maida had felt love, hope, compassion. Makoto didn't Junko had had the capacity for those things, although he wished even now that she had - maybe if she were more like Maida, it would have wound up very different for her, for all of them.

"She brainwashed everyone else." Maida pouted. Makoto had noticed the way she talked about her sister now, how it differed from the way she had when she was performing in front of the others. She wasn't delusional at all - that was just an act, an imitation. She _knew_ Junko was crazy; she _knew_ Junko had brainwashed people.

"But she didn't brainwash _you_ ," Makoto pointed out. "Is that what you're trying to understand? If that was because she cared about you or because she didn't; if you were spared or forgotten?"

"And Kane was worried your wife was the smart one." Maida chuckled. "You're quite something, headmaster. Now, if you don't mind - I have reading to do." She flicked the pages happily with her tongue. He had some thinking to do, so he left her in peace.

They all ate together, which was nice, until Hina confessed that Maida had told her earlier Kane would be back tomorrow to kill them all and it began to feel like a last supper. Makoto insisted he had a plan - that, if they could get Maida to unlock her cell phone, they could call for help. Toko was excited by this, because presumably Komaru would be their best shot, but Byakuya and Kyoko were skeptical.

"How do you expect to get her to co-operate?" Byakuya asked. "She hardly seemed perturbed by the gun before."

"I'm not going to use the gun," Makoto corrected. "I'm going to talk to her - don't look at me like that, I think I can get through to her."

Half of them optimistic and half of them cynical, they disbanded to their own rooms for the night. As he adjusted the pillows to make the bed more comfortable for Kyoko, he caught her staring down at her stomach.

"Is she causing trouble again?"

"No." Kyoko sat down on the bed and frowned. "Quite the opposite actually. She's been quiet. It's why I think it we haven't been here as long as we think we have - I don't think it's even been a day yet. She's always the least active right before bed."

"Hm, get that," Makoto sat down next to her and smiled. "She's not even born yet and she's already helping you solve mysteries."

Kyoko didn't smile. She looked away, blinking - blinking away tears, he realised.

"What's wrong?" He moved closer, his heart pounding the way it always did when he saw her upset. "Kyoko?"

"I don't remember my mother. I couldn't tell you what kind of person she was, what kind of parent. I wouldn't recognise her voice if I heard it now - and I was seven when she died." She looked back to him then, a sad indigngnance shining in her eyes that he understood to mean _it's not fair._ "Koichi's not even six yet. If we die here - he won't remember how much we loved him."

"Kyoko." He took both of her hands, slipped off her gloves and placed kisses to her scarred palms. "Listen to me: we're going to get out of here. Alive. I promise you. We're gonna have the rest of our lives to remind _both_ our kids how crazy we are about them."

Kyoko didn't respond directly to his optimism that they would escape, but she did take a deep breath before continuing, with a heavy voice, "I knew you weren't ready for another child. I knew I was pushing you into it. I shouldn't have done that."

"No! I'm glad you did." He dropped to his knees from the bed, so he was facing her. He placed his hands on either side of her stomach. "Kane's wrong. I _do_ want her. I love her so much already," he insisted fiercely.

"I know you do. I knew you would as soon as I got pregnant, no matter what." Her touch to his cheek was a soft gesture, but her tone was very serious. "But that just means you're a good father. It doesn't mean I did the right thing by pressuring you."

"You didn't. I wanted another baby. I just - I was scared." He frowned, knowing now he hadn't been innocent in that scenario either. He had lied to Kyoko about what the problem was but still resented her for failing to solve it. He hadn't consciously run away to the Future Foundation to avoid confrontation, to avoid acknowledging this relationship he'd put on a pedestal for years had flaws, but he knew it had made it easier to accept Munakata's offer. "I should have been honest with you. I just...I felt helpless. I felt like I couldn't fix your pain, after the miscarriage, I felt like I couldn't fix our marriage." It was why he had wanted to badly to do good in the world; he'd needed to feel like there was still something he _could_ repair.

"I thought another baby would be the fix." Kyoko looked down at her stomach again, and then back up to him. "I always thought the worst way I could fail was as a detective, but then I saw your face when the nurse said there wasn't a heartbeat."

"Kyoko." Makoto's chest ached for her, for the blame she hadn't been able to shake off since the first negative pregnancy test years before. He thought, not for the first time, that he would give anything to take it away from her, to switch places. "That _wasn't_ your fault. You didn't fail at anything."

"In the moment," she continued, clearing her throat to hide the hitch in her voice, "At the time, I didn't know how to come back from that. So I just made the decision not to try. It was easier to not be around you, to not have to feel like I let you down."

"That's where I'm supposed to come in," Makoto reminded her. He hesitated. "But I didn't. I let you go and I didn't fight for you and when I did fight, I fought the wrong things."

Now, Makoto could see where he'd gone wrong. When Kyoko isolated herself, he'd been too stung by the rejection to leave voicemails or make the first move. When he found out she'd gone back to work, he let bitterness take the place of encouragement. When she came onto him in his office at Hope's Peak and he pushed her back, what he should have done was hug her to him so tightly there was no more space between them for misunderstanding.

Now, Kyoko's eyes narrowed on him, focused, but there were tears more stubborn than she was threatening to fall. He pressed their foreheads together.

"I badgered you to come home," he said, "but I should been telling you that I would wait as it took - forever, if that's what you needed. I let anger and hurt stop me from being the guy you believed in, the guy you married. The guy who doesn't give up."

"You've always been that guy," Kyoko chided. She brushed her lips in a small kiss against his forehead before drawing back and sighing."We made a mess of things, didn't we?"

"Yeah." Makoto wiped his eyes with the side of his hand and chuckled. "It turns out marriage is kind of brutal."

"Hm. That it is," Kyoko agreed. She paused for a moment, considering, and then she reached for his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Still. I loved being your wife."

"Loved?" Makoto echoed. He stood up, but didn't let go of her hand. "Unless you have divorce papers hidden away somewhere, cut it out with the past tense, okay? I told you. We're gonna get out of here. You can't stop believing in me now."

"I'm not. It's just - " Kyoko frowned. "Makoto, why do you think Maida would help you?"

"Because as much as she talks about despair, she's not all gone, not yet," Makoto said, adamant. He smiled at Kyoko then. "I still have hope for her."

* * *

When he woke up after a slightly better sleep than the previous night (or day, he still had no idea what time it was) Kyoko was in the bathroom. He waited for her emerge and when she did, he was struck by how exhausted she looked.

"Did you sleep at _all_?"

Kyoko shook her head. She eased herself onto the edge of the bed and rubbed at the underside of her stomach. "I want to go home."

"I know." He kneeled behind her on the bed to rub her back, but she tensed under his touch. "If I have anything to do with it, we'll be home by tomorrow. A warm bath will make you feel better."

"Hm." Kyoko looked over her shoulder to him. "You're going to go talk to Maida?"

She sounded hopeful, which was an improvement from the goodbye she had tried giving him the night before. Makoto smiled. "Sure thing. You wanna go grab some food first?"

"I'm…" Kyoko shut her eyes before bringing her hand up to pinch her nose. "Um I'll pass, actually. I just need some rest."

"I'll stay with you until you fall asleep," Makoto offered.

"No," she said quickly. "Go talk to Maida. I'm…" she blew out a breath, " _curious_. How that's all going to turn out."

"Sure." He figured he was getting on her nerves. Makoto could take a hint. "Do you want me to bring you anything?"

Kyoko shook her head and waved him off. "I'm fine, really. Just...go say whatever you need to say to get us out of here."

"Deal." He kissed her cheek and then hurriedly got dressed while she fidgeted and winced in an effort to get comfortable. As he slipped out of the room, he banged right into Hina, who was coming out of the door across the hall. _Byakuya's door._

She blushed instantly, knowing she had been caught. "Uh, hi Makoto! Morning!"

Even with the impending doom of Kane's return, Makoto couldn't stop himself from smiling at his friend as she attempted to smooth the wrinkles from her clothes. "Morning Hina."

"You're um, up early."

"Yeah. Figured if Kane's going to come back, we don't have a lot of time left to escape. I wanted a head start." He looked to Byakuya's door. "How 'bout you?"

He waited for her to fumble over a lie, but instead, she pulled him into a hug. "I was taking your advice. _Living_ , like you said." When she stepped back, her eyes were bright in a way they hadn't been in a long time. "Like Sakura would have wanted."

He felt a rush of pride for her then, even if he wasn't _entirely_ sure that Sakura would have wanted her to be sneaking out of Byakuya's bedroom hours before their scheduled deaths. Hina had been so loyal and loving to all of them over the last few years, she deserved to be free from the things she'd imposed on herself. She deserved, maybe more than any of them, to be happy.

While she went back to her room - "to actually _sleep_ ," she giggled - he went to the kitchen and gathered some food and water for Maida. He knocked on her door, surprised when she told him to come in after just one knock.

"I thought I might wake you," he said.

"Kinda hard to sleep when you gotta pee," Maida grunted, still tied up. "Since you wanna be a hero so bad, do you think you can untie me?"

"Uh, sure." The second both her hands feet were untied, she sped into the bathroom. When she returned, he had laid them out some toast and cereal. "You hungry?"

Maida didn't need to be asked twice. They ate in silence, Makoto content that she hadn't immediately bolted. She didn't seem to mind the company, either.

"For what it's worth, you're a decent guy, you know," she said, with a shrug. "I asked your stupid kid if he was gonna be a detective when he grew up - cause he's supposed to be, right? - but he said no, since you're not one. He said he'd rather be like his dad than be cool."

"That's really cute." Makoto furrowed a brow. "Um, I think." He thought for a moment. "Was your dad cool, Maida?"

"The people who raised us weren't great people," Maida said airly, abandoning her half-eaten bowl of cereal to rip apart a slice of toast with her teeth. "But they died, so it worked out. That's when I met Kane. He's not a good guy either, but he let me live in his place until the stuff with you. He was worried your wife would look into one of us and figure out we were connected."

"Where did you live after that?"

Maida shrugged. "The streets. Until Itoh found out, then he made me stay with him."

Itoh. Of course. Maida's parents weren't the key to unlocking all of this - Itoh Sotan was. "Did Itoh know what you and Kane were planning?"

"Eventually, yeah." Maida didn't seem interested in eating anymore. She laid down on the floor, but continued to rip apart pieces of the toast apart. Koichi played with his food when he was trying to make sense of strong emotions too, so it confirmed to Makoto that Maida had genuinely had feelings for Itoh. "Kane knew he wouldn't risk his future as an athlete to help us, so he made sure Itoh couldn't be a part of the track team anymore." _Right_ \- the cutting of Hina's sports budget. "After that, all he had left was me, so he went along with it for a while, especially because Kane was offering to pay his grandma's medical bills. Itoh's been screwed out of a lot of things his whole life. It wasn't hard to pit him against the system."

"And the bomb threat?"

"Was _nothing_." Maida scoffed and rolled over, to look at Makoto. "Itoh changed his mind about helping us when he realised Kane wanted your baby - it's so annoying how kids turn everyone to mush. He was gonna give you all the evidence he had on Kane and me - that's why he was delivering a package that day. Kane got to the package before you, I guess," because he'd been with Munakata at the Future Foundation, "and he had to discredit him." Maida started to twist her hair around her finger. "Itoh told me I was going to hell and then he cut town. I haven't seen him since."

She said it so casually. Makoto frowned. "But...you loved him. Didn't that hurt?"

Maida stroked a hand over the cover of the book she'd been reading. "Maybe the despair is gonna bring me closer to her."

"Maida," he said, carefully, "before I was knocked out, Itoh came to see me. He was upset. I think he was trying to tell me this was all about to happen. He said he was scared for you." Maida didn't respond to this. Makoto's eyes fell on the pager attached to the waistband of her pants. "Kane only contacts you using the pager. He doesn't know you have a cell phone, does he?"

Maida gave him a mischievous wink. "He's dumb. He should know better than to think a teenager can go without their phone for this long."

"What if you used it to call Itoh?"

She glared. "Why would I do that? We broke up, dummy, I told you."

"Even so, he wanted to help you. If you let him, I bet he'd still want to." Makoto looked down at the book. "Don't you think it's a little…'dumb' to be so focused on what your sister was thinking? Junko's dead. Itoh's alive. Aren't you curious about what he's thinking?"

Maida didn't shoot this down. She thought for a moment. "For all I know, Kane's already offed him."

"I think he's probably being used as leverage to make sure you do what he wants." It wasn't like Maida seemed to value her own life that much. Sure, she'd protected Kyoko in an effort not to break her order, but she'd also let them toss around a gun they could have easily used to kill her. Maybe death was a part of her plan all along - a final act of despair, the legacy left behind by her sisters."I bet he would come and help if you called him."

He wasn't sure if Maida couldn't believe that, or if she just wouldn't let herself. How sad must her life have been, Makoto wondered, if she'd spent it trying to make sense of the senseless and sabotaged her own chances of happiness in the process. It was no way to live and it was certainly no way to die.

"You might never know if your sisters cared about you, Maida," Makoto conceded. Maida sniffed, resigned, but she was still watching him, tentatively. "But you know for a fact that Itoh does."

Despite spending a few minutes arguing hotly that Itoh probably wouldn't come, she gave in and made the call. Makoto watched the way she began to rock herself, nervous, when he answered. Makoto stood, declaring he'd give them some time to talk, but Maida held up her hand to stop him.

"Itoh says he's glad you're not dead yet," she said. "He always liked you." She turned back to her phone. "Will you come? I can tell you where Kane keeps the key."

Makoto helped out with this part himself, because neither Itoh nor Maida knew the combination to the safe in his office where Kane had hidden the key. Maida gave him the address or where they were, a bunker somewhere in the same forest where she'd spooked Koichi, which made sense, because she'd had to live somewhere once Itoh had kicked her out. She warned him not to take his car, because he was quicker on foot and anyway, it might tip off Kane if he returned and saw an additional set of tire tracks. As they were hanging up, Makoto watched Maida hesitate.

"Itoh?" she said, sounding, for the first time, like nothing more than an uncertain teenager. "Thanks...I guess."

With a spring in his step, Makoto returned to the dormitories. He knocked on Byakuya's door and told him to gather the others. "We'll meet you in the dining hall," he promised.

Kyoko was leaning against the desk when he came into the room, her hands on her lower back.

"Good news." He came to stand in front of her. "I got through to Maida. She called Itoh to come get us out. She told him where he could find Kane's key for the door and he managed to snatch it. Kane's gonna notice, obviously, but with any luck, Itoh will be faster." Makoto paused, the joke about Itoh being a runner dying on his tongue as he realised Kyoko had shut her eyes while he was speaking. She let out a slow, shallow breath. "Are you okay?"

"Not quite." She ducked her head and whined. "I'm having contractions."

"No." He gave a quick, panicked chuckle. "Heh. Very funny. You have like, a month to go."

"It's possible the food was laced with something to induce labour." Through gritted teeth, she added, "Or we have your _luck_ to blame."

The fact she was even considering his luck as a culprit usually meant she'd reached the end of her tether, which really didn't happen often. All other thoughts in Makoto's mind ground to a halt. "You're serious? But you can't! Not _here_."

"It's not exactly up to _me_ , Makoto." She lifted her head to glare at him, before shutting her eyes again and clutching the side of her stomach. " _Ugh_."

Makoto tried to compose himself. It was important to stay calm, right? "Okay but like... are you _sure_?" He frowned. "I mean, maybe it's just those fake ones."

"You have asked me a lot of stupid questions over the years but _seriously_ Makoto?" Kyoko demanded, sharply. " _Am I sure_?"

Makoto took in the sight of her then - the line of sweat on her neck, the tension in her shoulders, the way her stomach seemed to hang lower than it had before. He swallowed hard. "It's okay. It's fine. Because we can leave really soon - yeah, that's what I was saying. Itoh's on his way and then we can get out of here and go to a hospital." He reached for her hand.

She batted him off, annoyed. "I'm not going anywhere."

"But what if he comes back?" Makoto asked, sounding - and feeling - desperate. "Kyoko, listen, you need to think about this. Staying put is not a good idea."

"I'm too _busy_ to think right now." She turned away from him and began to pace, breathing deeply as she did so. "We don't know what's outside or how far away from everything we are. I'd rather give birth here, where there's blankets and heat and supplies, than take my chances out there."

"We have time though, right?" He too was thinking of how far away from help they might be - and how long it would take for the others to get a ambulance to them. "It took most of the day for Koichi to come."

Her silence was telling.

" _Kyoko_! How long have you been having contractions?" He already knew he wasn't going to like her answer.

"A while." She winced and lowered herself onto the edge of the bed. "I figured you didn't need the extra pressure."

Makoto let out a strangled laugh. "Um, yeah, finding out now is definitely not _less_ stressful."

"Oh, really? I can't imagine how terrible it must be to be you right now," she said, darkly, before looking up at him. "Listen, let the others leave, we'll figure out what to do later. Go get the kit Maida was keeping in her room."

He protested a bit, but then another contraction came and she snapped at him to hurry up with such venum that he decided it was probably best to just do as he was told. By the time he got to the dining hall, where the others had gathered, Itoh was already there.

"This is your great plan?" Byakuya asked of Makoto, eyeing the stranger up and down. "Another student?"

"Uh, former deputy headmaster, I'm not technically a student anymore. I got expelled."

"Oh, _well_ then in that case -"

Hina interrupted to insist Itoh was a good kid, that they could trust him, but when she turned to him for backup, Makoto could only nod, before relaying the situation with Kyoko to them.

To their credit, they were as equally horrified as he was.

"Kyoko can't have a baby here!" Hina cried. "What if something goes wrong?"

" _Aoi_ ," Byakuya tsked, before stepping in front of her to meet Makoto's eye, looking very serious. "What do you need us to do?"

"You guys need to get out of here," Makoto said, without hesitation.

"No way!" While the others looked conflicted by his instruction, Hina was resolute. "There's no way we can do that. We leave here together!"

"The best thing you can do for me and Kyoko and the baby is to get to safety and send help back here to us."

Makoto watched as Hina's eyes filled with tears. "But I can't just leave you."

"You heard him," Byakuya said, firmly. "We are of more use on the outside. I doubt Kirigiri wants an audience, anyway."

"Uh, right - that too. Listen guys, stay safe, okay? And stay together. I gotta go." Before he left, he gave Hina's hand a squeeze. "I'll see you soon, I promise."

He retreated to Maida's room for the delivery kit they'd found the day before. He touched his hands to the little sleepsuit and hat and swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. After gathering up all the bedsheets and blankets he could find, he spent the walk back through the now empty facility to Kyoko's room trying desperately to recall any information he had retained from online searches and antenatal appointments and television. Weren't babies lungs the last to develop? How early was too early to be born healthy?

He didn't have too long to worry about that or Kane's imminent return before his mind was occupied with ensuring Kyoko was comfortable - well, as comfortable as possible, given the circumstances. From a folded up kitchen towel, he made her a cool compress; each time a contraction tore through her, he let her lean against him, murmuring words of encouragement and rocking with her, because the motion seemed to ease some of the pain.

When her water broke and she told him she wanted to try pushing, he helped her to the bed and out of her jeans and underwear. He sat between her legs and tried his best to guide her and, when she got irritated with him telling her to push or breathe ("are there other _options_?") he changed tactics and tried complimenting her instead. You're so beautiful. You're so strong. _You're so annoying,_ was Kyoko's heated response, before another contraction came, too soon, and she reached for his hand.

"This is going to be a funny story to tell her one day, you know - full of bravery and heroics." He paused, giving Kyoko's hand a squeeze. "I'll be sure to say you did good too."

That at least earned a breathless huff of laughter, before her face twisted in pain again. " _Makoto_ ," she whined, and when he glanced back down, he understood.

"I can see her. Hey, how long do you think it's been? Twenty minutes? Thirty?"

"I don't _care_." With the next few contractions, he lost her. All of her energy channeled into pushing, she didn't react to his soothing or his jokes or even his touch. She was so focused as she fisted the sheets impossibly tight, so determined despite the agony. Makoto had never been more amazed, or more terrified, by her.

The flicker of relief he felt when the baby's head emerged was extinguished instantly when he realised the umbilical cord was around her neck.

"Stop. Stop!" he instructed Kyoko sharply, but it took her a moment to absorb this command. With his heart in his mouth, his hands moved of their own accord - his wife's confused, still breathless, ' _Makoto_?' sounded a million miles away - as he slipped the thick, heavy cord over the baby's head. He felt Kyoko's body tense up again, muscles clenching, a telltale sign of another contraction.

"It's okay," he said, as the cord fell in a loose loop. "You can push again. It was just the cord. I got it."

It took another two pushes before the baby was forced out completely, into his waiting hands.

"Hi, baby," he whispered, already crying tears of relief and joy, before his mind registered that she was too still, too quiet, and his throat tightened. Even coated with... _whatever_ , Makoto could tell the baby's skin was tinged blue. He laid her down on the bed and began massaging her chest, all wonder at the moment gone, replaced with a terror he'd never felt before.

 _She's not breathing._

" _Makoto_?" Kyoko, having recovered enough to question the silence, struggled to sit up to look. Kyoko didn't do hysterical, not ever, she didn't have that setting - but right now, the escalating pitch of her voice was suggesting otherwise. "Why isn't she crying?"

The whole thing only took a matter of seconds - Makoto, pushing his finger into their daughter's mouth, clearing out any fluid she'd swallowed, before leaning over her and pinching her nose, blowing a few gentle breaths between her tiny lips. Her eyelids were the first to twitch, and then her fingers curled, and then colour blossomed on her cheeks. She let out a tiny squak, like a baby bird, and Makoto hurried to wrap her in a blanket and bring her up to her mother.

Kyoko was still asking, frantically, why she wasn't crying. He placed a kiss to her head and laid the baby against her skin. "She's fine," he murmured, his instincts to reassure and calm Kyoko as her shaky hands came up to cup the baby. "See? She's all good."

Makoto knew the sound of their daughter beginning to screech would probably never be as endearing as it was in that moment. He watched a hundred different things cross his wife's face as she looked down at the baby, breathless and in awe. He sank down beside them, his own body beginning to shake now he'd passed the baby over.

"She's small," Kyoko noted, after a beat of silence. She sounded instantly happier as she pulled back the blanket to examine the baby.

"She's _alive_ ," Makoto marvelled in response. He rubbed his face, a panic attack on the cusp of his lungs, a sob lodged in his throat. "I thought - fuck, for a minute, Kyoko, I thought…"

"So did I. Not the greatest time for you to abandon your running commentary, by the way." Kyoko looked at him carefully over the top of the baby's head. "How did you know what to do?"

"I didn't." Even though his body still felt it was made of jelly, he forced himself up, so he could take in the sight of his newborn daughter properly. "I think it was just an instinctive thing."

"Well, that certainly _was_ lucky."

"Heh." The baby was beginning to settle down now, her face pressed to Kyoko's skin. His wife's hand came up to touch his cheek and immediately, he felt fresh tears sting in his eyes.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm supposed to ask you that," he said, huffing out a shaky laugh.

"You might actually have gotten the worst of it," Kyoko reasoned. She ran a hand through his hair and then turned back to the baby, whose cries had subsided to confused coos. "Bravery and heroics indeed, hm, Chiyo?"

 _Chiyo_. After his mother. Hearing Kyoko say their new daughter's name with such tenderness made Makoto feel like he was going to burst with love. They were both okay. They were both okay and so, so beautiful. They were both okay and beautiful and they were his, forever. Even as he waited for the afterbirth (more gross than he remembered) he caught sight of Kyoko feeding Chiyo and a gasp caught in his throat at how intensely he felt relief and love and pride.

It wasn't long at all before Kyoko glanced toward the bathroom. "Cut the cord and then you can take her while I get cleaned up."

Makoto frowned. "I dunno, Kyoko. I feel like we should wait for paramedics to get here."

"You wanted a plan," she said, bluntly. "This is it. You said yourself Kane is going to come back. I don't want our daughter to be here when he does. We have to go."

He did the best he could at clamping and cutting the cord with the equipment in Maida's box and then he took the baby from Kyoko. "Take it easy," he warned, watching her ease herself up from the bed gingerly.

When she was in the bathroom, he wiped the baby down with a damp cloth. "You're so beautiful," he cooed, while she squirmed under his touch, her little lips pursed in an 'o' shape, not understanding why her feed had been interrupted so abruptly. "I get it. You're all about mom right now, but just you wait. I'm gonna win you over. You're gonna be a daddy's girl before you know it." The sleepsuit hung too long on her little legs, but the hat fit her head just right. "That's better, huh?"

"Stand up." He hadn't even heard Kyoko come back into the room. She was dressed again, although her clothes fit a little more oddly now, and she'd fixed her hair into a neat bun. Aside from being paler than usual and looking a little worn around the eyes, he didn't think it was at all obvious she'd just given birth.

"You look great."

She picked up the baby and handed her to him, holding her in place on his chest as a demonstration for him to keep her there. "I feel like death, quite frankly."

As the baby started to whine, he rocked himself from one foot to another, gently, his hand cupped against her head. At the feeling of soft fuzz under his fingers, he brightened. "Is she blonde?" He hadn't noticed she even had hair, it was that fair. He craned his neck to look at her from this new angle, while Kyoko tore up the spare bedsheets he'd brought along. "Or is it just a light lavender? I was blonde when I was born, you know. She might get it from me."

"Stand still," Kyoko commanded as she set about wrapping the stips of material around him.

"Do you hear that, Yoyo? Mom makes all the rules. But I'll teach you how to break them, don't worry." He smoothed circles on his daughter's back and she quietened. " _Yoyo_. Yoyo?" He turned the nickname over on his tongue. "Or Chi?" He looked to Kyoko. "I used to call Koichi 'chi' when he was a baby, do you remember? Sometimes I still do. Is it cute for them to have the same nickname or confusing?"

"It's unnecessary. Their given names are fine." Somehow, in the ten seconds he'd been contemplating their daughter's name, she'd fastened a makeshift sling, held together with an impressive knot. Kyoko tugged on the material. "How does that feel? Is it tight enough?"

He nodded. "Uh, shouldn't you carry her? Then I can go ahead and make sure things are safe."

"You're warmer than I am."

"Oh." Makoto watched her cross the room. "I don't feel good about this, for the record."

Kyoko shimmied the mattress on his side and held up the gun. "Relax. We have this."

Gun in hand, she led them out of the room, down the dark corridors and to the main door which had been helpfully propped open by the others. He was hesitant about leaving with a baby in tow, still, but the prospect of staying wasn't exactly less daunting and so he followed his wife out the door down another concrete hallway to a bricked up dead end. A single steel ladder stretched up the wall, further than Makoto could make out.

"Oh. I meant to tell you we're underground," he said, squinting up at a crack of light.

Kyoko frowned. "I'll have to go first. If you fall - "

"- I know, I know, you can't catch me." She'd given him the same warning as they'd climbed out of the trash disposal room at Hope's Peak. He'd found it as unhelpful then as he did now.

"Actually, I was going to say if you fall I'll kill you," she corrected darkly, eyeing the baby in a way that made it clear she was regretting giving her to him. "Be _careful_."

"Got it." He tried to sound confident, but he didn't think he'd ever concentrated on anything as much as he did his footing and maintaining a distance from the bars so as not to hit the sleeping baby's head as he moved upwards. He lagged behind Kyoko - who was slower than usual anyway, given the fact she was clearly still in pain - but he couldn't let himself even think about speed.

By the time he reached the top, Kyoko had given up on waiting for him. Clamoring to his feet, he spotted her a few yards away, among the dense forest of trees.

"Look," Kyoko said, beckoning him over to whatever she'd found. He smiled when he followed her stare to a trail of donut crumbs leading away from them.

" _Hina_." Even in a hurry, she had left them a trail so they could find out way out. Makoto began to follow, stopping after a few steps when he realised Kyoko wasn't following him. "Kyoko? Come on."

Kyoko held up her hand to silence him. "Listen."

"I don't hear anything."

"I _do_." Just then, a hum of a car engine somewhere he couldn't place made him spin around.

"Kane. _Shit_. We need to go."

Kyoko took a step back. She looked to the bunker entrance for a second too long before turning back to him. "Go," she said firmly. "I'll go back inside and distract him. You need to go."

"No. We _all_ need to go." When he attempted to grab her wrist, she dodged him. "Kyoko! I'm not leaving you here."

Her eyes fell to the baby. "You have to." Suddenly, it didn't seem like such an accident that Chiyo had wound up tied to his chest. "We can't run with the baby. He'll catch up to us. You have to take her and go."

"You're insane!" he hissed.

"You're going to get us all killed if you don't _get out of here now_ ," she warned. "Makoto, I'll be fine. I have the gun. I'll catch up with you." She gestured for him to shoo. "Now go."

Makoto wanted to protest, insist they swap the baby over right then and there so he was the one in danger. He tried to reach for her again, but she'd already turned away, was making her way toward the bunker. Their daughter stirred against his chest, and he could hear the car engine, closer now; he noticed, for the first time, the tire marks where Kane was set to pull up, any second now. When he spoke, all that came out was, "Kyoko, _please_ don't die me."

"I won't." The way her eyes lingered on him, on their daughter, gave him chills. "Now _go_."

* * *

Makoto didn't know how far or long he walked. Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes? Distance and time were pretty relative when you spent each step, each minute, wanting to turn back around. More than once, he almost convinced himself to - but then he'd look down, at the newborn anchored to his chest and he forced himself to keep going. If it weren't for Chiyo, he would never have left Kyoko, but he knew that if the roles were reversed, he'd want his wife to do the same thing. All he could do was hope it wasn't a decision he would ever have to justify to his children.

When, finally, a road came into sight, he felt torn between relief and guilt. He stood a better chance at getting his daughter away from here, to safety, but it meant leaving his wife stranded. A car came into view, like fate forced his hand before he could think too much, slowing when it saw him, even before he began waving it down.

Best case scenario, he figured, was that it was his friends. Worst case scenario was that it was Kane himself - a possibility that had him taking very tentative steps to where the car pulled over. His expectations were quickly exceeded when he saw Kyoko get out of the driver's side.

She didn't seem too thrilled by him running to her. "Makoto, the _baby_ ," she scolded, peaking around the fabric to check on Chiyo, who was awake and whining. Makoto cupped Kyoko's face in his hands and kissed her. Hard. He made the conscious decision to ignore the blood on her cheek.

Despite kissing him back and smiling, for a second, against his lips, Kyoko broke away, cutting their reunion short. She opened the door to the backseat, exposing an infant car seat, already perfectly installed and ready for use. As she helped him ease Chiyo out of the material sling, Makoto pointed out that it had actually worked in their favour that Kane had had such a ready plan to kidnap their daughter. It meant they were able to deliver her and escape with her much more safely than if he hadn't.

"That might be your optimism and not your luck." Kyoko adjusted the straps of the car seat to fit snugly around Chiyo's tiny body. "Anyway, since you're so glad to see me again, you can drive. I'm going to sleep. Wake me up when we're at a hospital."

As he climbed into the car, he noticed the gun on the passenger's seat. Kyoko noticed him staring as he keyed up the ignition and she sighed.

"I didn't kill him," she said, matter-of-factly. In the mirror, he watched her lean in to admire their daughter. "I thought about it. I wanted to. But I figured you would never shut up about it if I did, so I shot him in the leg and locked him in one of the bathrooms instead." Kyoko yawned. "I imagine the police will be there soon, so it's unlikely he'll bleed out."

"You did the right thing." He knew this was true, but he also knew the roaring love Kyoko had for their children - how difficult it must have been for her to walk away from someone who had wanted to take them from her. "We can tell our kids that no matter what, we were still the good guys." Makoto smiled, although she wasn't looking. He watched her eyes drift shut, the baby's fingers curled around hers. "The good guys always win," he said and that, he truly believed.

When they got to the nearest hospital, they were reunited with their friends for only a few minutes before being swarmed with well-meaning nurses who found the appearance of them, clothes stained with dry blood, deeply concerning. Makoto put his hands on Kyoko's shoulders as one tried - and failed - to ease the baby out of her arms.

"We can examine you in the same room," the nurse tried then, despite not knowing why Kyoko was so protective, "you don't have to leave her." Kyoko turned to him, unsure, and he nodded.

"You guys go. I'll wait for Koichi." Toko had informed them Komaru was on her with the kids and as much as Makoto didn't want to be apart from his wife and newborn daughter, they needed to be looked over and he _needed_ to see his son. He stood aside and let them get whisked away.

"I knew you guys would be fine," Hina said, hugging him for what was now the third time since he arrived. "We all did. It was only Hiro who thought you might die."

"I totally didn't Nagei! I had faith in you. You have like, five whole lives left."

"Heh, well, we got out of there a lot quicker thanks to your donut trail." Makoto rubbed his eyes, tired and emotional now the adrenaline had fully faded. "You guys are the best, you know."

"Yes, well, I shalln't argue with you there." Byakuya held out a duffle bag to him. "I had my assistant bring these. A change of clothes. They will be much too big for you, naturally, but they will have to do. Unless you wish to traumatise your child by having him see you as you currently are?"

Makoto took the hint. He changed in a bathroom cubicle, while outside, Hiro and Byakuya relayed Maida's surrender to the police and Itoh's attempts to hire her a lawyer.

"I took it upon myself to put in a call to Munakata on her behalf. Thanks to Kirigiri's deduction that he was the one who instigated the fire in my building, I had some leverage to entice him into overseeing the case. I imagine he'll be handling the imprisonment of Kane and the rehabilitation of the girl." When Makoto emerged from the cubicle, double-folding the sleeves of the dress shirt he'd been given, Byakuya was fixing his hair in the bathroom mirror. "Assuming, that is, that she can be rehabilitated."

"She can be," Makoto promised. "Thanks. That was really great of you."

"Yes, well, I knew it would be your wish."

"You're like a genie, man," Hiro marvelled.

"I simply would prefer Naegi take this time with his family than be preoccupied with what happens to our captors next." Byakuya adjusted his glasses. "Aoi and I will meet with the board of directors first thing tomorrow and get affairs of the school in order. I'll step in, if need be, until such time as we can all get together and determine the best way forward." When Makoto began to interrupt, Byakuya met his eyes in the mirror. "Don't even think about arguing - you can't do everything. _Prioritise_ , Makoto," he insisted.

"Fine," Makoto conceded as he tossed his old clothes in the trash and they left the bathroom. As much as he felt responsible for Hope's Peak, it was a weight lifted to hear someone else say they would take care of it. He didn't know if he still wanted to be headmaster - even before all of this, he'd planned to take time off when the baby came to figure that out - but it was reassuring to know that it was a decision he could make later, when his head was clearer and the panic of the last few days wasn't so loud. "I owe you, Byakuya."

"You can compensate by putting in a good word for me," he said, measuredly. Makoto followed his eyes to where Hina was laughing with the doctor who was examining her ankle.

"Heh." Makoto smiled. "I'd be happy to."

" _Daddy_!" Koichi's little voice echoed against the bare walls of the hospital corridor. He bound into Makoto's arms with such fierceness it almost knocked him from where he had crouched.

"Hey, you." He was vaguely aware of his sister and niece passing by, quick squeezes against his shoulder before running to Toko, but Koichi was babbling against his neck about a cool car he saw in the parking lot and he smelt like home and he felt so warm and so big and so _right_ in his arms. "Oh, Koichi, I missed you _so_ much."

"I missed you too." Koichi pulled back, touching his little fingers to the tears on Makoto's cheeks with caution. "Are you sad? Don't you like the new baby?"

As far as Koichi was concerned, they'd been gone for the last day because the baby was being born. Makoto hoped it would be a long time before he'd have to tell his son the truth.

"No, I do." Makoto chuckled and wiped his face with his long sleeves. "I like her a lot. I think you'll like her too. I just - I feel really happy now, because you're here and she's here and we can all be together."

"Where's mommy?" Koichi asked then, predictably.

"I dunno." Makoto stood, still sniffing, and closed his hand around his son's. "Come on, let's go find her."

They were forced to wash their hands before going into the room where the baby was being kept. She was even smaller than she had seemed to Makoto before - although, it may have just been that now he had Koichi for comparison - in a little glass cot, with blue lights shining on her skin and a white strip of bandage over her eyes. Kyoko was sitting on a window seat in a hospital gurney, far more appealing to Koichi than his new sibling. Makoto watched his wife wince in pain as Koichi thrust himself into her lap, but her arms closed around him, holding him against her tight, all the same.

"Everything okay?" he asked, while she pressed kisses to their giggling son's forehead.

"She just has a touch of jaundice, apparently. She'll be fine in a day or two."

"Poor baby." Makoto touched his hand to his daughter's soft cheek before looking up. "And you?"

"You don't want to know how many stitches I have right now." As she said this, she was shifting the weight of their son in her lap. "I hope you like the two we've got, because I'm officially _done_ having kids."

"That's fair." He passed by the baby's cot to ruffle Koichi's hair. "Hey, come say hi to your sister."

Obedient and curious, Koichi slid off his mother's lap and approached. He was barely tall enough to see in. Makoto crouched next to him.

"What do you think?"

Koichi frowned. "Doesn't she... _do_ anything?"

Behind him, Makoto could hear Kyoko laugh. "She's just a baby right now. She'll be able to play and talk when she's older."

"Oh." Koichi sighed. "Well, can I hold her?"

"Tomorrow," Kyoko promised. Makoto rose and sat down beside her, leaving Koichi to mumble a begrudged introduction to the baby. "They want to keep us both in overnight."

"You okay with that?" Kyoko had hated hospitals even before the miscarriage and he'd suspected she'd been dreading spending time in one again. Being back here himself made it hard to shake the memory of too much blood and muted heartbreak.

Kyoko, who had always been tougher than him, shrugged and nodded towards the baby's cot. "She needs to be here and I can't leave her." He noticed the way she stiffened as Koichi inched around the cot, just out of their line of sight. It would take a while for either of them to be able to relax when it came to their children, it seemed. "Did you hear that they got Kane?"

"Yeah. Byakuya said Munakata is going to handle it from here." Makoto inched closer to his wife. "I'll give it a few weeks and then I think I'll fly out there and talk with him."

"I'd rather you _didn't_."

"I know, but he's still Emi's father. Some day, she might want a relationship with him." Makoto leaned his head on Kyoko's shoulder. "Who knows? Maybe the hope of that will be enough to get him on the right path."

"Hm." Her head fell to his. "You and that undying optimism of yours."

"As annoying as ever, huh?"

"Well, yes, but as impressive too," Kyoko admitted. "I wouldn't change it." She lifted her head, before lifting his with her gloved hands and kissing him. "I wouldn't change _any_ of it."

"Oh. _Good_." He smiled and leaned their foreheads together, not moving even as Koichi pushed to sit in between them and the baby started to cry. "Because I wouldn't change anything either."

* * *

 _If you made it this far, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I know it sounds stupid but this fic has been /my/ baby for the last two months. I'd love to hear your thoughts & thank you again for reading! _


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